Merry Cheatmas

                                                         North                            

                                                               ª A943
                                                               © AK84
                                                               ¨ QT84
                                                               § 5

 

                                                        South

                                                               ª K2

                                                               © 32  

                                                               ¨ A32

                                                               § AQJ432

The EBU were very suspicious of the above online hand where the Rueful Rabbit had made 7NT. South opened 2C, intended as Precision, showing 11-15 with 5+ clubs, and North bid 2D, intended as a relay opposite an Acol 2C. South rebid 2NT showing a non minimum with 6 clubs and North thought this was 23-24 so raised to 7NT. West led a neutral seven of spades, How do you make this contract And what lead would beat it?

The above hand from the Woodberry Xmas Party, (liar - Ed.) reminded me of one from the Xmas party three years ago in non-Covid times. We had two visitors who were slightly suspicious:

Belsnickel and Krampus, two of the Woodberry's seasonal visitors, reached a poor 6NT by South in the Santa Claus Pairs 3 years ago. How should "Belly" play it on the lead of the king of diamonds from Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer, West? RRR's nose let him down here. Which lead would have beaten the contract, which was cold on the actual lead?

And if you want to know the solution, then why not turn up at the Woodberry on 4th January, when we will resume F2F play at the club. Lateral flow tests highly recommended and masks obligatory 

Space Odyssey by Foxymoron

The Woodberry Bridge Club used modern technology to play in the 2001 US Nationals, and scored in a field of people they had never met. In 2001 there were several thousand tables in the US, so the scores were indeed indicative of how well you did. They will be on the Woodberry website in a couple of days.

There was one grand, on board 4, and it was a tricky one to play:

Richard and Debbie had the misfortune to see the Robot and Sam Nim reaching grand here, with East reversing and then bidding Key Card Blackwood. On the diamond lead, Debbie covered so that was that, but I think the Robot would have played the simple line of ruffing the third spade and made anyway. It is somewhat better than Hal was as you can see.

Reaching 7H is not easy. Richard Pavlicek recommends the uncontested auction 1D-1H-2C-2S-3H-4NT (simple Blackwood!; it was in 2001 and probably in 2010, the year we made contact)-5D-5NT-6D-7H. But it is easy with hindsight. And how do you play it? Well on say the QS lead you cash a top trump and discover the bad break. Now you can ruff a spade in dummy for your 13th trick, but that might not work as you might be overruffed. Or you can play the club-spade squeeze, and that does not work. Or some double squeeze. So many lines. If you made 7H you would get a top - in 2001, in 2010 or in 2021. And 7NT does not make.

And you can view all the hands at one of these links, depending on your browser security:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6gv32nsd7tajxzq/7u01.pdf?dl=0

https://tinyurl.com/kynnuvja

https://tinyurl.com/2p98wppm

All three seem to work. The last is presented nicely.

And the full results at the Woodberry, laboriously compiled by scorer Nigel Freake, are at:

https://tinyurl.com/3mvt9b82

Tatties O'er the Side by Foxymoron

My friend Victor Silverstone sadly passed away recently at the age of 80. He was well-known to Woodberry members as he played in most London events and I had the pleasure of being at the Camrose and Senior Camrose with him. He was always a pleasure to chat with, in his broad Scottish accent, and I used one of his tips recently in the Lockdown League, playing for Woodberry. West is on lead against 4S, and in the other room led a trump and the contract made.

Victor's advice was to lead the top card in a suit where partner has doubled for the lead. Our auction went, with South dealer, 1S-P-2C*-X-2S-P-4S-All Pass. 2C was artificial and game-forcing and double showed clubs, so I led the queen!

Red suit leads are immediately fatal, and declarer can succeed easily as well on a trump lead as he can just play a diamond to the jack or king after drawing trumps. However, the queen of clubs is a dagger to the heart of the contract and now East has safe club exits after trumps are drawn. I am sure the opponents thought I was self-kibitzing but I wasn't.

I remember Victor saying, on a similar hand. "Leid th' hi'est caird or it wull be tatties o'er the side". This is wonderful Scottish Slang and gives our tip for the day.

"Lead the highest card in the suit in which partner asks for the lead, or it will go pear-shaped." And the last expression is much newer, from pilots in the Air Force who performed loops which were imperfect in the air. If they weren't round, they were "pear-shaped", as mentioned in the 1983 book Air Force South Atlantic.

RIP Victor. You were a great player, but an even greater person. 

His funeral is at Carpender's Park, Lawn Cemetery Watford at 11 am on 13 December.

Hehu by Foxymoron

The digit eight is the most common number within pi, with four the second most common. Interestingly, or boringly dependent on your view of maths, the numbers 2, 4 and 8 are the only ones that occur more than 10% of the time. Only slightly, mind you, as there are 100,000,791,469 eights in the first trillion digits of pi.

The Hehu, or Ogdoad, is in the dictionary as a set of eight things. Considered to have come into creation before the world did, the Ogdoad consists of four couples—eight individual deities—who balance one another and the nature of the cosmos.  Each pair correlated with one of the primary elements of the universe in the Egyptian belief system, i.e., water, air, light, and time. 

Eight-card suits in bridge are certainly not the most common, but they are more frequent than nine-card suits. Voids are even more common of course. Three voids - and three eight-card suits - on a single hand is very rare, but it occurred in the SIMs this Tuesday

In our room East overcalled 4H over 1D, and I had little choice but to bid 4S. North felt that he could not move on, but East added one more for the road and South tried again with 5S. North was now happy to have a second bite at the cherry and added a sixth. Six Spades could not be beaten as three hearts could be ruffed in dummy. The origin of the phrase is 19th Century, and apple was later replaced by cherry for no particular reason.

And "one more for the road", comes from Frank Sinatra:

We're drinkin', my friend

To the end of a brief episode

Make it one for my baby

And one more for the road

In this room, a club lead would have defeated 6D, but naturally enough East tried to cash the ace of hearts. Now the diamond suit is interesting. A singleton ace is no good to you, so you need to find a singleton queen, and, mirabile dictu, there she is. Ian Macleay made the right play to bring home his thin slam.

Triple or Progressive?

 An interesting squeeze which led to two extra tricks occurred at the Woodberry Weekend.

We were busy debating whether it was called a triple squeeze or a progressive squeeze until Nigel helpfully pointed out that they were just two different names for the same thing!

East opened 1NT. South overcalled 3 diamonds. West then bid 4NT, which East raised to 6NT.

The contract looked difficult as there were only 10 top tricks.

South led 5 of diamonds, won by declarer with the Ace.

East then led a spade, unsuccessfully finessing the queen.

North then returned a spade to the Ace.

Declarer then cashed two diamonds, discarding a heart from hand.

North discarded a spade on the King, but when the Queen was led, she had a problem as she was guarding all three remaining suits.

In practice, a club was discarded.

Declarer could now cash 4 club tricks, and on the 4th club North was again squeezed in the major suits.

The heart discard enabled the slam to be made.

Horror Vacui by Foxymoron

The above expression is often translated as "nature hates a void", a concept in Physics called plebism (nothing to do with Andrew Mitchell!). It is attributed to Aristotle and means that there is no such thing as a void. Plato also thought that, as a void is nothing, it cannot exist!

There were certainly plenty of voids on yesterday's hands, and one of these allowed a grand slam to be made. Someone dealing many million hands with Bridge Analyser believes that only 2% of hands allow a grand slam to be made, so an average of about 0.42 grand slams in a set of the 21 boards we play each week. Yesterday two grands were makable.

Bridge players do not generally hate voids, but judging what they are worth is not easy. On the following hand, Al and Judy certainly did hate the fact that North had a spade void, but as EW had 11 spades between them this was very likely:

A competitive and lively auction was judged well by Bill Linton, South. West thought 6H was bid as a sacrifice so he doubled, but the spade void in dummy and the singleton club with South meant that there was no defence. A rare score of +1210 for NS was a top.

The other hand with two voids was the following, well bid by Jim O'Donoghue and Ian Macleay to a small slam, even though 7D can be made by ruffing out the hearts. This only needs the hearts no worse than 5-2 as well, so is a pretty good grand, even though EW have only 19 points.

West might bid 6C instead of 6D. This is clearly a grand-slam try, and asks for good trumps, but would the message have got across? And it was not necessary, as 6D+1 was a top.

All Roads by Foxymoron

The proverb "All roads lead to Rome" derives from medieval Latin. It first appeared in writing in 1175 by Alain de Lille, a French theologian and poet, whose Liber Parabolarum renders it as 'mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam' (a thousand roads lead men forever to Rome).

I thought of the saying yesterday when discussing the auction to 4H on the following hand from the Autumn SIMs. I am pretty sure that all will have played the hand in 4H, but the auctions might well have been different. Playing "Benjy Acol", South can open 2C (or 2D if that shows 8 playing tricks in a suit). The rebid of 4H shows nine or ten tricks, and North will pass.


A slightly different diagram as the booklet and BBO record is "not yet available", but Sally Brock's excellent comments are. If South opens 1H, as I did, North will respond 1S, and South is too strong for 3H, non-forcing, so is pretty much forced to bid 4H. All roads ... Even an attempt to show extras by bidding 3C over 1S will just get preference to hearts when South will bid 4H. All roads ....

All roads do not lead to ten tricks, however ... If West leads a passive trump, declarer can make an easy 11 tricks by leading a spade up after drawing trumps. Andy Conway found the best diamond lead against me. I won in dummy, East playing the king, and drew trumps and led a spade up straight away. Andy had to guess whether I had one or two spades. Some of the time I have two spades, the defence can take three tricks anyway, so I think it is right to win. But Andy and his partner Leonid Balakhchev had a fine win with 69% so it would be churlish to criticise his decision on this board.

Can East help his partner in this decision? Only with some defensive agreements. East has a choice of which heart to play on the first round, and would need an agreement that his heart carding is "linked" to the key suit. He has to diagnose that this is spades, first of all, and then he has to have an agreement that low high in hearts shows an odd number of major suit cards. Armed with this information, West can win the first spade for a good score. However, declarer can avoid this "exchange of information" by only drawing one round of trumps and then playing a spade. Now West has only seen the eight of hearts and doesn't know whether East has a higher or lower one. He will probably assume that the other heart is lower and still duck the first spade, playing his partner for a doubleton. Bridge is a game of "imperfect information" and defence is harder than offence.

The Mechanical Duck by Foxymoron

 There was a remarkable play by the deserved winners of the Woodberry Pairs this week, when Dominic Flint, president of the LMBA, and his wife Pamela Reiss won with a fine score of 69%. I recall Tiger Woods scoring a 69 on a tough course at Bethpage Black, on his way to winning the US Open, and he was being interviewed by the golf journalist Sarah Stirk. "If you had offered me a 69 this morning I would have taken it with pleasure!", said Tiger with a grin.

It is sometimes a mechanical reaction to duck the first round of a suit with the ace. The mechanical duck was invented in 1739 by Jacques de Vaucanson. He was an inventor who created an automaton that was a mechanical duck. The robotic duck would quack, move its head to eat some grain which would appear to digest and after a short time, would discharge a mixture that looked and smelled like duck droppings.

What has this do with bridge?, you might well ask. Well, Pamela found a cunning play to make her game on the following hand, inducing East to make a "mechanical or robotic duck".

The lead of the jack of clubs to her queen gave the contract a bit of a chance, and Pamela made the clever play at trick two of leading the queen of spades from hand. It looked for all the world as if she was hoping to use the king of spades as an entry for a red-suit finesse, and East ducked which does indeed look natural. Now Pamela played the ace of clubs and another club discarding the king of spades. Poor East was helpless. A trump lead picked up the suit for one loser. A diamond allowed the king to be picked up, and a club lead allowed declarer to ruff and later pick up the hearts. Pamela was the only declarer to make 4H, so scored an outright top, and East let through the overtrick late in the play, but that did not cost at all. 

Winifred by Foxymoron

 Today was the funeral of our late former Chair, and member since 1987, Winifred Irene Godber. She was born in Finsbury, Islington, in 1937 and spent her early years in Stoke Newington. She married John and gave birth to three wonderful daughters, Lyn, Susan and Diane. By 2021 her extended family had grown with six grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.

I knew her only through bridge, and she was a regular at the club for over 30 years serving on the committee, duplicating boards, and organising catering. She loved to play many card games with her large family such as spades, trumps, rummy and hearts.

One of her most astonishing hands was one on which she made 7H in the Garden Cities Team Tournament in 1991. And she shuffled and dealt the board at the table; no duplimate machines in those days. And she certainly shuffled well! As there was no really interesting hand in tonight's game at the Woodberry, I have no qualms in presenting this one again! Winnie was West, and often reminisced about this amazing board:

Winnie always liked to bid one more, and her 7H was a great success and as you can see cannot be defeated. Even better that 6S was making as those that doubled found to their cost.

She was very much a Londoner all her life, although moving to Essex after starting a family. Few know that the name Winifred comes from Saint Winifred, the Welsh virgin martyr of the 7th Century. So she has some links with my country, Wales, and there is the stained glass below of Saint Winifred in Castell Coch in Cardiff. The name is a form of Winefride, but all her life she was just Winnie to all who knew and loved her. May she rest in peace.

Expressing Doubt by Foxymoron

People have expressed doubt for thousands of years, as in this painting of Doubting Thomas by Caravaggio:

My partner's bidding on a hand last night was much better than mine, and I should have stopped to think what doubt the auction showed. Generally when you bid 3NT a round later than you might have done it shows doubt that 3NT is the best final contract.

We had a similar, but different in meaning, auction to the one below, to the same contract:

South's 2H was game-forcing and I think North should bid 3D rather than 2NT, and then 3NT over 3S, as my partner did. This should have shown enough doubt for me to select the best contract of 5D, but I elected to pass 3NT, although partner's heart stop was pretty much certain to be Qxx. At our table they cashed five rounds of hearts, and my partner went three off trying to get some matchpoints for 1 off. The first recorded zero appeared in Mesopotamia around 3 B.C. and we have had many of them since then. He would have scored the same zero for 2 off.

Against Ken and Chantal, NS had a top when East led a passive diamond. Declarer took the club finesse, and Debbie switched to the jack of hearts, but Richard fell from grace by not overtaking, which would have led to 3 off. 3NT+1 was a worldwide top for Ken and Chantal.

Continuing our Biblical theme, the expression fall from grace is derived from a passage in the Bible, Galatians 5:4: “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.” 

And for those that might have missed the announcement, Winnie Godber's funeral will be on Tuesday 21st September at 1:30pm at Enfield Crematorium,  Great Cambridge Road, Enfield, EN1 4DS.

This is being followed by a wake at Woodbine Social Club, Woodbine Close, Waltham Abbey EN9 3RQ. Winnie requested that people do not send flowers but instead send a donation to Meningitis Now:

https://www.meningitisnow.org/support-us/donate

Puppets and Muppets by Foxymoron

 

First there was Stayman, then there was 5-card Puppet Stayman, invented by Kit Woolsey, and then there was Muppet Stayman, The idea of the former is that the weaker hand shows the other Major, hence Puppet. In response to 2NT, a bid of 3C asks partner if she has a five-card major, which she bids, or a 4-card major when she bids 3D. Responder then bids the major she doesn't have. Puppeteer Jim Henson invented the muppets, but he did not invent Muppet Stayman which was also pioneered by Woolsey where the opener bids 3NT with 5 hearts. On the hand below, Janet Cahm and Marietta Andree, welcome visitors from the Wimbledon Club, used Puppet Stayman to good effect:

In response to 3C, North showed her 5-card heart suit and South judged well to bid Roman Keycard Blackwood. North showed 1 or 4 key cards, clearly 4, and South bid the good slam. East led a top diamond and Janet started well, cashing two high hearts. Now when the queen dropped she played two top clubs ending in dummy and now had a 100% line of ruffing a club high, crossing to the jack of hearts and taking two discards on the clubs. Instead she was greedy and tried to cash a third high club and if East had ruffed that she would have been a trick short. But East also took his eye off the ball and discarded, fatally. It is thought this expression comes from baseball, but is often used in golf and other activities as well.

The EBED SIMs, in aid of bridge development, was a great success and the hands with a good commentary by Brian Senior are at:

https://www.ebu.co.uk/sims/events/20210907_g3u64rtnxjr/20210907_commentary.pdf

Brian mentions that 6NT can be made on a strip squeeze and endplay on a spade lead. Declarer plays low from dummy and the ten forces the ace. Now declarer has seven red winners, and in the five-card ending West has to keep the king of spades and four clubs. Now declarer cashes two top clubs and throws West in with the king of spades to lead into the club tenace. The expression tenace, for any honour combination with a gap, comes from whist. Its etymology is the Spanish tenaza forceps, ultimately from Latin tenāx, holding fast, from tenēre to hold. The reason for the origin is unclear, but maybe that the two honours surround the other honour like a nutcracker with a walnut.

Computer Says No by Foxymoron

 One of my favourite sketches was on Little Britain, in which David Walliams plays a rude hospital receptionist. You can view it at:

.: - Little Britain - Computer says no - :. - YouTube

I was reminded of this when my partner only raised my 15-17 1NT to 4NT last night. The computer says, "No, you have should have raised to 6NT". Bridge Analyser thinks that the East hand below will make 6NT a whopping 81% of the time, even opposite a 15-count, so 4NT is just wrong. The key is the AJT combination which, like the little girl in the sketch said, is "nearly six" not the "five" that the Milton Work Count gives it. KJTxx is also "nearly five" and the East hand is worth around 17, and a clear raise to 6NT.

I think the above auction is normal, with Liz Clery raising directly to 6NT. Jim O'Donoghue and Iain Macleay also reached 6NT, 1S-2D-3NT (15-16)-6NT, and Jim guessed the spades to make a valuable overtrick. It seems that there is nothing to go on after a heart lead, but it is narrowly right to lead the ace of spades and then run the jack. You can pick up ª Qxxx in either opponent's hand, but cashing the ace first gains when South has a singleton queen.

Deafening Silence by Foxymoron

"Sometimes the sound of silence is the most deafening sound of all.” - K L Toth, author of A Test of Faith. 

The expression Deafening Silence goes back a long way, and is, like foxymoron, an oxymoron. The Deafening Silence papyrus, illustrated above, can be found on Alexandria's northern island, inside a building that is called Iseion. Its modern meaning is that it is a striking absence of noise, so profound as to have its own quality. An example was on this hand from this week's Woodberry Pairs:

Winnie, East, opened a 12-14 no-trump and Stefanie, West, transferred to hearts. North doubled and East broke the transfer with 3H, showing four. Now West made a slam try with 4C and the "deafening silence" of East's failure to cue 4D should have been music to her ears. 

The expression "music to one's ears" can certainly be found in Comedy of Errors (1616) and perhaps earlier. West can be sure that East does not have the ace of diamonds, and can confidently bid RKCB and then bid the slam when East shows two key cards and no queen of hearts, with a 5H response. Even a grand opposite AKxx KQxx xxx xx was not out of the question. Both the double of 2D and the lack of a diamond cue should have pointed West in the right direction.  Still 4H+3 was worth 45%, so the field are struggling with the hand too.

Sad to report, Winnie Godber, East on this hand, passed away on 28th August, peacefully in hospital. She was a member of the club for 34 years and a previous Chairperson. Funeral arrangements will be on here and the woodberry.info site when available.

Safety Net by Foxymoron

Safety plays in bridge are not always right. One needs to work out the net gains and losses from them, But knowing what they are is a good start. The lines of a song by Ariane Grande, the performer on the day of the tragic Manchester Arena bombing, came to mind after a hand yesterday:

Tripping, falling with no safety net

Boy, it must be something that you said

Is it real this time or is it in my head?

Got me tripping, falling with no safety net

 

Diamonds was the suit in which a safety play could be considered yesterday. Lucy tripping in the Sky with Diamonds maybe.

AuntieAnne won two events at the EBU Eastbourne Congress recently, one with fellow Woodberry member Rachel Bourne and one, appropriately as Auntie Anne, with her two nephews Liam and Jamie Fegarty and her sister-in-law Catherine Curtis. She was not going to miss the safety play here. Slam is poor, with only 31 points between the two hands but was a lot better on the spade lead which gave declarer four tricks in that suit. She now just needed four diamond tricks (or three with the ace of clubs onside). One declarer ran the jack of diamonds on the first round, but Anne correctly cashed the ace first after which it was plain sailing. Cashing the ace gains when either defender has a singleton queen, while running the jack on the first round only gains when East has a singleton seven. 

One important point, which it took a curry with the Welsh team at the European Championship in Cardiff last night to realise, was that if declarer runs the jack and West is the one with the singleton queen, East must drop the seven from 97xx to give declarer a losing option!

If nothing happens on the ace of diamonds, then you should run the jack on the second round, and if West began with Q97x of diamonds, you will need to find the club ace onside.

Acronyms by Foxymoron

A friend worked for a while for NACRO, the National Association for the Care and Rehabilitation  of Offenders. I suggested that this was a nacronym but that just caused her to wince.

Acronyms are common in bridge, but one should try to avoid them if possible. My partner and I were told to explain HELD and HELO on our convention cards, and write them out in full, for the forthcoming European Championship. They are fairly standard, High Encouraging, Low Discouraging and High Even, Low Odd, but the danger with acronyms is that they can have more than one meaning.

F2F seems to have become a standard acronym as lockdown comes to an end, and it was good to play live bridge yesterday at the Woodberry. The online game ran in parallel and everything went smoothly. The use of "2" in acronyms is quite common for "to". After all it saves one key stroke. H2H for head-to-head, an expression that distinguishes league and knockout formats, is another acronym that uses the digit.

The online players yesterday had two more boards than the live players, having to spend less time washing their hands I suppose. They had the chance to bid 7NT on the following board, but only one pair, Derek and Maria Essen, managed it:

I came across an acronym I had not seen before when Anne and Andrew Stimson were EW. After 2C-2D-2H which was game-forcing with hearts, East bid 4C which was RKCLG, which every self-respecting acronymologist knows is Roman Key Card Ladder Gerber. The response showing 4 allowed East to ask for kings and bid the grand. There is no advantage in playing in hearts. If West has x AKQxx AKxx AQx for example then 7NT is still solid, but 7H might unluckily fail.

Derek was West and 2D showed 23+ and 2NT was a balanced positive, 10+. West showed his hearts and East bid RKCB for hearts - we know that acronym. West showed 4 and I think East should now ask for kings and then can bid the grand with confidence when she finds out that West has the king of diamonds. West could just about have Qx AKQJx AJx AQx, which would be 23 points, and now 7NT needs the diamond finesse. But it is always nice to bid 7NT and I quite like the gamble as it could well be solid, as it was. EW were given an easy ride, and a weak 2S opening bid by South at these colours would have been a good way to throw a spanner in the works.

Morton's Fork by Foxymoron

Under Henry VII, John Morton was made Lord Chancellor in 1487, with fiscal responsibility. He rationalised a flat tax by reasoning that someone living modestly must be saving money, and therefore could afford the tax; whereas someone living extravagantly was obviously rich, and therefore could afford the tax as well.

The term has found its way into bridge. Usually a defender has a choice between winning an ace, when declarer will make two tricks in the suit, or ducking when the declarer only makes one trick, but the defender never makes his ace. An example was on this hand below:

Keith Nash and Simon Few had a good win in the weekly duplicate, helped significantly by this board. North might decide to play for penalties at these colours, but there would be no guarantee that South would reopen with a double.

East, Judy Bourne, led her partner's suit with the eight of spades and Keith ducked this and won the second high spade with the ace. Now he led a heart and East won, perforce, and exited with a club. Now Keith won in North and led a second heart.  If East ducks, declarer can establish his tenth trick in spades. If East wins, declarer has two heart tricks and can squeeze West in spades and diamonds to also make ten tricks. So East has been a victim of the dreaded Morton's Fork. Having missed out on 500, Nash and Few emerged with a good score from +430. 

At another table, the Robot recovered quite well after misunderstanding the auction:

, 

West's opening bid of 2D was a multi, always a good choice against a Robot, as they assume it is a weak 2D which most Robots play, even though West alerted and explained it correctly. North's Double was takeout of diamonds, not my choice, and East's 2S was pass or correct. Now South could have had a joint top with a takeout double, which North will pass in his sleep, or should I say "in its shutdown".

In the play, Robot ducked two spades, not realising they were 6-1, and then it played hearts up twice. East ducked the second one, but now the Robot cashed all its clubs and then played the ace and jack of diamonds. It did not matter who had the queen of diamonds, as that player would have been caught in a double squeeze. It won with the king and the queen dropped from West. For an average plus. Computers don't know about Morton's Forks yet!

Look Before You Leap by Foxymoron

“Look before you leap”

 is first known to appear

 in this 14th century manuscript

 (Ms. Douce) now housed

 in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

This very old proverb or adage (it is not an idiom) stems from Aesop's Fables (around 620) where the fox could not climb out of the well, so persuades the goat to jump in. It's modern meaning is that you should consider the consequences before acting. Keen students of Middle English will be able to read the above!

Nowhere is this more relevant than at trick one in bridge, even if one seems to have the most natural action in the world. As in the following hand from last night's British Summer Sims Pairs.

The auction was a good one, and only four of the eleven NS pairs reached slam, and making it scores 70% in any case. But the overtrick is not to be sneezed at, especially online in these Covid times. East led the queen of clubs and Ken Barnett won, far too quickly, with the ace in dummy. If the hearts are 2-2 you have six hearts, two spades, one diamond, two clubs and a club ruff, totalling 12 tricks, but the "baker's dozen" will be a useful bonus. 

The best line is to win the lead with the king of clubs, cash the ace of spades, play two rounds of trumps ending in dummy, play the king of spades and ruff a spade if the queen does not appear, cross to the ace of clubs and ruff another spade. Now you can ruff a club and enjoy the thirteenth spade. As long as spades are 4-3 and trumps 2-2 you will make an overtrick. 

Chantal was also in 6H by North and made the same mistake as Ken, but the opponents misdefended and she made an overtrick when both defenders threw away too many diamonds. Making the overtrick elevated her score to 90%. One can still make 12 tricks of course after winning with the ace of clubs, but one does not have enough entries if the queen of spades does not not come down in three rounds. If you swap the queen and nine of spades, you can only make an overtrick on a club lead if you keep the ace as clubs as an entry.

As one of my Welsh friends points out, playing low from dummy is the best way to make the contract as well. If hearts are 3-1, you will then still have enough entries to establish the long spade while the defenders ruff with their trump trick.

It is, however, great to report a Woodberry winner of the SIMs last night; Phil Mattacks and Ken Rolph came first nationally with a fine score of 71.04%

Take a Break by Foxymoron

 The word "break" has so many meanings, not as many as "pass" and "set", which are the two words with the most meanings in the standard dictionary, with the latter winning by a landslide. Even in games and sports its meanings differ, with a break in snooker being a long run of pots, while a break in darts is to win the leg when the opponent throws first. Take a Break is a very successful magazine which combines rather mindless puzzles and word searches with "soap and star stories".

Even in bridge, break has more than one meaning. A bad break would usually be a 4-0 or 5-1 trump break. To break a contract is to defeat it. But also a break is the "non-completion" of a transfer as happened on the hand below. Fred Pitel judged very well to bid slam when his partner broke the transfer:

2NT was 20-22, 3D was a transfer to hearts, and 4H showed 4 or more hearts and a good hand. I am surprised that other tables who had the same start did not bid slam now, and I think 4NT, Roman Keycard Blackwood, is best although it could lead to a slam off the ace and king of spades. After North showed 1 or 4, South bid 5H which said "if you have only 1 pard, we are too high!" North had an easy 6H, although I might have even bid 5S here to show the king of spades in case South has extras.

The play was interesting. Declarer drew trumps, cashed the top spades and ruffed a spade and played ace and another diamond. When the queen lost to the king, he now took the club finesse. So, the slam was 75% requiring one of two outcomes (with a small extra chance of a singleton king of diamonds or Kx with East). The chance of AT LEAST one of two coin tosses being a head is also 75%, which some people get wrong. That reminds me of another poser. A friend covertly tosses two coins and tells you that one of the two results was a head. What is the chance that the other coin is a tail? I will leave that with you.

Right on Cue by Foxymoron

This phrase, roughly meaning just at the right time, seems to stem from the theatre, and the etymology is 16th Century; probably from the name of the letter q, used in an actor's script to represent the Latin quando (when). A cue was a signal for an actor to enter the stage.

Both Chantal and Stefanie produced identical auctions today to balance with a natural 2S bid. They were partnering good players, and had no hesitation in trusting their partner with a cue bid of the opponent's suit. The word "cue" is interesting, and is a form of "queue" as a way of representing the letter. I sometimes throw in at the end of a party the poser as to which Welsh word is pronounced the same way as its English equivalent, but has no letters in common. That is CIW, the Welsh for QUEUE, seen on road signs in Wales. The poser normally triggers other guests to look at their watches and say, "Is that the time? I must get my coat".

But I digress. This cue today was not a mystery:

Some play an immediate 2S as natural, but on the next round it is unambiguous. 2S is always making 9 tricks for a joint top, and both Wests led a trump, a poor choice, which should cost the second overtrick. Chantal won and ran the jack of hearts which Robot East won to return another heart, but this allowed South to get a club away on the third heart while East ruffed with a trump trick. 2S+2 was worth all the matchpoints. Stefanie was in the same position, and when East ruffed with the nine of spades she overruffed instead of discarding the ten of clubs. Now she should play a diamond and can later gain entry to dummy to take another spade finesse to share a top. When she didn't, she only made one overtrick. So Chantal had the honours on this board, but Stefanie came out on top overall with a fine win with Ken Rolph on 67%.

K for Kount by Foxymoron

Kount is the world's largest company for detecting credit-card fraud, used by many of the top banks and finance houses, but the expression K is for Kount is a bridge term, linked in with A is for attitude. The theory is that if you lead the king of a suit you have bid, partner gives count (yes I know it is spelled with a "c") and if you lead the ace it asks for attitude. That would have avoided the bad result that Harvey and Doug experienced on this hand from last night:

At our table, East-West sacrificed in 5Cx, which had to go one off a bit unluckily, when the defence cashed their three major-suit winners. This was a "phantom sacrifice" as 4H should be beaten.

At this table, West decided to defend 4H but put all his eggs in one basket by leading his singleton spade. This was poorly considered, as his Qx of hearts suggested that declarer would be able to draw trumps easily and so it proved; it would probably only succeed if partner had the ace of spades. A better defence was to lead the king of diamonds, asking for count in that suit. Now East plays the three of diamonds and South the five. Now West knows that East does not have four diamonds, as with JT32, East should play the second card, the ten, but East could easily have three diamonds. West cashes the ace of diamonds and all becomes clear when East follows with the two and West can give East a diamond ruff, for a very good board. If East has four diamonds, there is a lot to be said for him giving false count here, as he can see that South will only have one, and he does not want his partner to attempt to cash the ace of diamonds.

The phrase "putting all his eggs in one basket" was said to be first used in the novel Don Quixote (1612 in English), where it was written “It is the part of a wise man to keep himself today for tomorrow, and not venture all his eggs in one basket.”

Piss-poor by Foxymoron

The Woodberry B team has been promoted in the Lockdown League to Division 4. The octet of Paul Lamford, Stefanie Rohan, Ken Barnett, Chantal Girardin, Gary Diamond, Paul Thornton, Gerry Weston and Paul Huggins gained promotion comfortably in the end. They had a record score of 62-0 in their penultimate match when the opponents' play was described by one kibitzer as "piss-poor". The same phrase was used today about the defence at one table, but this did not stop us from winning by 24 IMPs and cementing our promotion spot

Piss-poor is a very old word and not obscene in any way. They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot and then once a day it was taken and sold to the tanner. if you had to do this to survive you were ‘piss-poor’. But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot they “didn’t have a pot to piss in” and were the lowest of the low.

I must confess to using the expression "piss-poor" when discussing the EW defence on this board:

The normal opening lead here is AC, followed by a heart switch for 800, but Gary led a diamond. Luckily that did not cost and he won the first spade with the ace and cashed the ace and king of clubs. Still no harm done. Now however he cashed another top club, setting up two winners for South. It would still have been two off if he had exited with a minor but he now switched, belatedly, to a heart. Fortunately East's ace was the defence's fifth trick so this was Diamond-proof on Mohs degree of hardness of letting through the contract. Impossible, but still 12 away against the 800 in the other room when Ken decided he was worth a second bite at the cherry at the four level.

Fortunately the opponents had a piss-poor auction to 4H on the following board:

In the other room, North just raised the 2H rebid to 4H but we had a better auction, which began 1H-2D-2H-3C-3H-3S. I would have cued 4C over 3S on the South hand, but I had enough to move on the North hand anyway. 5D showed 0-3 key cards and South obviously bids slam over 5H as he has three. I think a good method is to bid 5NT now to show the queen of trumps and nothing else. If I had AKQxx diamonds I might then bid grand, but there were too many imponderables to do so on the actual auction. Still 6H+1 was 13 in, as the diamonds came in for four tricks on any reasonable line.

So, division 4 here we come, and a meeting with Woodberry A next season.

 

Trash Nothing by Foxymoron

 The expression Trash Nothing, sometimes called Freecycle, has come to the fore during Lockdown. People give away their unwanted items, of little value to them, to deserving recipients. That cat carrier which you have in the loft even though your last cat passed away 15 years ago is a typical example. One can drop off these items at selected venues and they are collected by needy people.

The first thing that Stefanie and Bill agreed today was to play a Trash Multi. This means that the hand has little value and partner knows that you have minus one defensive tricks. He should not ever bother asking for keycards as you rarely have any! If the opponents bid game, they are probably making it, and you should save even at love all.

North's 2D has all the essential ingredients of the trash multi. No defensive trick in sight. Reasonable shape in that 6-4-1-2 is good. One should say that the agreement is 1-7 HCP as one would do it as well with JT9xxx in spades. In third seat it can be varied, but here it should comply. I would have bid something on East's hand, as South might pass out the trash multi with some diamonds, but 5C on the second round looks fine. Bill did well to save in 5S and it was almost impossible for EW to bid their cold slam. NS won this board, but EW came back in others and managed to tie first on 60% in a good contest.

If East does punt 6C he should make it. Even on the best defence of the ace of spades and a heart switch. Declarer can rise with the ace and run all of the trumps. South gets squeezed in the red suits in the three card ending. Phil Mattacks even made an overtrick in 6C as East when South did not cash the ace of spades, as the squeeze generated two extra tricks because of the extended menaces in dummy's red suits.

Breaking Up by Foxymoron

 A famous Abba Song has the lines:

We just have to face it

This time we're through

Breaking up is never easy, I know…

The reader might think that refers to East-West's partnership on the hand below, but nothing could be further from the truth, as Vampyr found a nice endplay for a top on this board:

West decided that she didn't want to double and risk the ox opposite getting his hands on the dummy in Four Spades. And how right she was! 4S is clearly making, losing two clubs and a trump, and it seems that 3NT has only nine tricks. However, the defence was difficult. Jim, North, led the ten of hearts and dummy's jack won. Now declarer lost the spade finesse and the spotlight focused on North. He needed to switch to a club at this point to break up the impending endplay on South, but, as the Swedish group sang, "breaking up is never easy".

North continued hearts and Stefanie won, cashed all her spade, heart and diamond winners, and now threw South in with the fourth round of diamonds to lead into the king of clubs for a deserved tenth trick and a top.