Find the Lady by Foxymoron

 There have been three dreadful films called Find the Lady, all purporting to be comedies. Oddly 20 years apart and, mercifully, none since 1976., The first two were British, in 1936 starring Jack Melford and in 1956 starring Donald Houston. Then there was a US film in 1976 starring John Candy. Don't check them out!

I hope they will not bother to release another one in 2026 and I think I would prefer to watch the Find the Lady scam, also known as the Three-Card Monte. At least that has some clever sleight of hand. 

No subterfuge was needed by Dave Harrison playing in his first Woodberry duplicate tonight. A little bit of logical thinking increased his chances of finding the lady:

EW had an "ABBA" sequence to the reasonable game, which most people play as forcing. An ABBA sequence is where you revert to the first suit, as here with 1H-2C-3C-3H. So East was forced to bid game with 4H. This looked bleak when South led the jack of spades. Declarer covered but North won and continued with two more rounds of spades, East ruffing. Now, declarer needs to find the lady, the queen of trumps, as well as to hope for a favourable club lie. Dave did well to play a heart to the nine, as he needs North to have the ace of clubs. As a result there is one more available space for South to have which makes South slightly more likely to have "Dronningen" - the original title of the 2019 film Queen of Hearts. About five percent more. But if you always take the better chance you will come out on top at the end.  On this occasion, the queen was with South and the game made. And Dave was the only declarer to bring it home. Sometimes you just have to go with your feel. One billionaire might agree:

Percentage margins don't matter - Jeff Bezos

Du sublime au ridicule by Foxymoron

 Du sublime au ridicule, il n'y a qu'un pas is a saying wrongly assigned to Napoleon which essentially means there is one step from the sublime to the ridiculous. It is interpreted as meaning that great undertakings may end in disaster. Although sometimes attributed to the French diplomat Tallyrand (1754-1838), the expression is used much earlier by French historian Jean Francois Marmontel (1723-99) and later by Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason (1793).

Almost all pairs opened 2C, except for Web Ewell and Michael Klein who had a strong club auction. One ridiculous auction went 2C-All Pass, which might have been a misclick, but the Robots managed a better effort. 2S was a positive, 3C showed five clubs, 3S showed 6 spades and 4S showed a doubleton. 4NT was RKCB and over 5S, showing 4, South made a grand-slam try with 5NT and North showed the king of clubs, That was all South needed to bid the grand. 

West followed the standard advice of leading a trump against a grand slam, but reading the auction as a 6-2 fit should have been a warning bell. The spade lead was a disaster and declarer soon claimed thirteen tricks when the jack of clubs fell.

The precision auction did not fare better. 1C was strong, and 1H showed spades. 1S asked and now 2H by South showed 6-(322). Now North could ask for specific shape with 3C, and controls, with further relays, and probably end in 7S, but there was a misunderstanding and they ended up in 6S.

The keen self-kibitzer of course bids and makes 7NT, and without finessing the jack of spades or the jack of diamonds. On the heart lead, he wins in North, cashes the top spades discarding a diamond and finesses the queen of diamonds. Now five rounds of clubs from the top execute an elegant double squeeze. And he will have played the right single-dummy line as well, so escapes punishment for his first ten offences. Sublime.

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same ...

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, 

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Out of Step by Foxymoron

 "What would you lead against 3NT on board 9? " I asked others on the weekly Zoom call after the game. The auction was uninformative and apart from a spade lead all three suits came into consideration:

Everyone seemed to lead a diamond, but all Norths bid 2C or 3C on the second round which makes a diamond lead more attractive. I asked a couple of leading questions, "Should I lead the unbid major?" "Is Jxxx normally a bad lead?" All I can say is that my lead of the four of hearts was a disaster, and more so when my partner put in the jack. Even if South has Q9x it is right to play the eight when the suit will be locked. But one zero is the same as another and, as declarer guessed to play a club to the 10, we were not getting any matchpoints for -460, so we might as well concede -490 which we did.

"They Were All Out of Step But Jim" is an American World War 1 song which was released in 1918 by Billy Murray and reached number 3 in the US.

Did you see my little Jimmy marching with the soldiers up the avenue?
There was Jimmy just as stiff as starch like his Daddy on the seventeenth of March.
Did you notice all the lovely ladies casting their eyes on him?
Away he went to live in a tent over in France with his regiment
Were you there, and tell me, did you notice?
They were all out of step but Jim.

I felt like Jim when I saw dummy and even worse when partner turned up with the king and queen of diamonds. Next time I will lead the fourth best of my longest and strongest.

Overnight I did a simulation of the 4H and 6D lead, on the assumption that they had 25-26 points. I discovered that Jimmy was the one out of step, and the 6D is slightly the better lead. Maybe Jxxx is not so bad after all:

So, very little in it, but the diamond lead holds it to 9 slightly more often than the heart lead. Next time I will get it right ...

z

It's Too Late by Foxymoron

 There are at least two versions of the above song, one by Gloria Estefan and another by Carole King, There may be more. Both these feature the lines:

And it's too late, baby, now it's too late

Though we really did try to make it. 

We found that we were two tricks too late to break up a squeeze today against Matthew and Rachel Bingham, who have made a welcome return to bridge.

I decided to open the West hand 1C, prepared to pass any response, but North had a normal 1NT overcall. South had to invite via Stayman and North did not accept the invitation. My partner led a spade and I won and returned a low spade to the jack. East cashed the king of spades and I unblocked the queen, as was necessary. Now it is instinctive to cash the two winning spades, but fatal. West is the only player guarding the minor suits and gets squeezed. My partner wondered if not cashing the fifth spade was good enough, but, as Gloria or Carole would say, it's too late. We need to switch (to any card) after cashing only three spades. At some point we will win a trick in one minor and can then cash the fourth and fifth spade for one off. 

A tough defence to find, but any plus score would be very good for EW. -120 was very poor. As ABBA said, "Breaking up is Never Easy".

Calling a spade a spade by Foxymoron

 "To call a spade a spade" entered the English language when Nicholas Udall translated Erasmus in 1542. Famous authors who have used it in their works include Charles Dickens and W. Somerset Maugham, among others. Its origin maybe the phrase "to call a trough a trough", attributed by some to Aristophanes.

One the hand below, my partner asked me why I did not call a spade a spade, but I had a good reason.

I remember Helgemo bidding 1NT on a hand like North's and getting to 5C. If you bid One Spade you are rather stuck for a rebid if partner bids 2D as now 3C is fourth-suit forcing. So you are almost endplayed into bidding 1NT. Now, if partner bids 2D you can bid 3C, which is non-forcing and shows 6 or more clubs. On this hand of course, Harvey Fox, South, bid 3H and this turned out to be the limit of the hand as North quickly passed. West led a top diamond and South won, drew three trumps and knocked out the ace of clubs, but the defence cashed out to hold the contract to 3H=. This was, surprisingly, below average as two pairs had defended 3H doubled which made, and one East, EISOJ, tried to win the first round of clubs (in 4H) with the ace, without noticing that her partner had ruffed it.  At least the software did not let her lead out of turn, and she perpetrated the well-known "winner on winner" play, through inattention. And now West did not cash the ace of spades so declarer made an overtrick. All this was revealed by a replay of the board on the BBO platform which is pretty good for post-game analysis.

Look and you will find it - what is unsought will go undetected. - Sophocles

Grosvenor's Gambit by Foxymoron

 The Grosvenor Gambit appears to have been first mentioned in print in 1973 in an article in Bridge World. Philip Grosvenor, a fictional character in a short story by Frederick B. Turner had a habit of deliberately giving up a trick in bridge, but the trick would come back because the opponent could not imagine anyone would do this. He was eventually found bludgeoned to death by frustrated opponents who did not see the funny side of his behaviour.

This was a kind of Grosvenor today, although the requisite malice aforethought was not present. The auction was interesting. 2NT was a Jacoby FG raise, and I decided to treat the North hand as a complete minimum and bid 4S which ended the auction. At other tables, North-South got too high. East led a trump which neither helped nor hindered. I drew a second round and cashed the two top hearts ending in North.

Now I led the eight of clubs and East played low in tempo. Which card should I play from the dummy? On the actual layout, I can make 11 tricks by putting up the king, playing a second club which East should win to play a diamond. Now I can play the king from dummy and West has no resource. If he ducks I just play a second diamond and if he wins he is endplayed. Why did I reject this line? Well if East had won the ace of clubs and played another one I would have to broach the diamonds myself and would not be able to make an overtrick. So I played the ten of clubs and West won, returned a club to East and he now played a diamond. I had to guess to put in the king to make 10 tricks. Ivan had perpetrated his first Grosvenor Gambit.

Don't try this against any self-kibitzer, of course, as they will find the winning line. And don't  trust a hesitation from East when you lead a club. That might well be from Qxxx.

Option Trading by Foxymoron

Trading options is a dangerous pursuit, with substantial sums won and lost. I was facing a poor board today against a good player, and decided to gamble that he would get greedy. I had the option to settle for -430, but I was the greedy one and got egg on my face. Not for the first time.

I decided to open a weak 2H here. I wanted a heart lead, and wanted to make it awkward for the opponents, But I ended up setting out a road-map for declarer. Chantal, West, overcalled 2S, and East had an easy 3NT with a double heart stop. I led a top heart and East knew to win the first round as he still had a second stop if I did have a minor-suit ace. He now led the king of clubs. North won this (ducking was probably better) and now North returned a club. Now East played a diamond to the queen and North won (again ducking made declarer work harder). Now North played another club, whereas a diamond would have held declarer to 9 tricks as it would break up the impending endplay.

On the run of the spades I was a bit stuck on the South hand. If I kept Jx in diamonds, I would be thrown in to lead into the KT of diamonds. I smoothly (at least I thought I did) bared the jack of diamonds, but there were no flies on Ken and he dropped the jack for a national top of +460. That'll learn me to open 2H on a five-card suit. Mind you, holding it to -430 would have only been a 10% board.