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!