Guard of Honour by Foxymoron

The Compound Guard Squeeze is one of the most complex plays in bridge, with an exact reading of the layout being necessary. The ingredients are usually that only one opponent is guarding one suit, both opponents guard a second suit, and one opponent has Hx in the third suit. it is quite rare, but occurred on a hand last night at the Woodberry

The winning line on a trump lead is to draw trumps and then play a club. North can win and play a second club, but declarer ruffs and runs the trumps. North has to come down to a singleton club but declarer just cashes the last spade. If North throws a club, South will be squeezed in hearts and clubs, so he pitches a heart. But now declarer cashes a heart and can finesse the ten of hearts for its twelfth trick.

A more testing defence found by Ryan was the heart lead. Now declarer has to play differently and play the ace and king of hearts and ruff a heart high. Now declarer leads a spade and has to finesse the six to get an extra entry for the dummy reversal. This would be wrong however if North had the seven, and declarer has to guess. After that works, it ruffs the last heart and plays a club. North can win and play a second club, but East ruffs and finesses the eight of spades, Now he can ruff the losing club high, cross in diamonds and draw the last trump. A perfect dummy reversal.

At the table, the Robot played a normal line on the ace of clubs lead, followed by a second club, of ruffing, drawing two rounds of trumps and then it tried to ruff the fourth diamond, but South ruffed the third diamond so it was one off. I tend to think the robot's line was right, but unlucky. They are getting better.

Ducks in a Row by Foxymoron

The expression getting one's ducks in a row is quite interesting, and many sites are unclear as to its origin. It means to complete one's preparations or get one's house in order. In bridge this should be done at trick one, before you play a card, and declarer might have done so on this hand:

South's double of Stayman showed clubs, and the double of 2S was takeout. Now 2NT showed a spade stop and East raised to game. North had no reason to find the killing lead of the KS, and led a heart. Now it is very unlikely the hearts are 5-2, so declarer should not duck at all, but he did duck the first heart and South won with the queen. Now, South might have recalled the bidding and switched to a spade, but he continued hearts, and North played the jack, but Richard ducked again. Now North woke up and switched to the king of spades, and Richard ducked for a third time. At this point there were no good options, and when North continued spades he ducked for a fourth time but was now one off as he still had to lose the ace of clubs. Had he got his ducks in a row at trick one, he would have realised that no ducks was the right procedure; he should win the first heart and drive out the ace of clubs! Richard and Debbie had a fine win with 63% but it could have been even better but for this hand.

The earliest example we’ve seen of the phrase is from a 19th-century African-American newspaper in Detroit: “In the meantime the Democrats are getting their ducks in a row, and their ticket is promised to be very strong” (the Plaindealer, Nov. 15, 1889).

We’ll end, however, with an example from an earlier children’s book, Goodrich’s Fifth School Reader (1857), by Samuel Griswold Goodrich. Here a mom is teaching her ducklings how to walk in a straight line to a pond:

“Yes,” said the ducklings, waddling on. “That’s better,” said their mother;

“But well-bred ducks walk in a row, straight, one behind the other.”

“Yes,” said the little ducks again, all waddling in a row.

“Now to the pond,” said old Dame Duck—splash, splash, and in they go.

Cash by Foxymoron

Cash is an interesting word, with many different meanings. The financial one is also unusual, with "Cash in" and "Cash out" having very similar meanings. I remember Obama saying that he had to bring the US back to prosperity. "Until recently we had Cash, Jobs and Hope", he said eloquently in his re-election address.

Cashing out in bridge is often difficult. I think the SIMs compiler for Tuesday's game had been reading recent Woodberry Blogs, in which eight-card suits and voids were prevalent. This week's SIMs event, in memory of the late Pater Jordan, was won online by Matthew and Rachel Bingham with a splendid national score of 69%.

South opened 3D at Game All on the above wild hand and North took his chances in 4S, but East was not shut out and bid 4NT, showing the other two suits. Usually West contented himself with 5C, which was indeed the limit of the hand. Some North players elected to defend that and they had to cash the king of diamonds to beat it. Leading the king of spades would be fatal as the diamond loser would go away. At our table North bid 5S, and against that East-West had to cash their rounded-suit winners to beat it. Scores were all over the shop on this wild board, with 5Cx= and 5Sx= being the tops in each direction.

"All over the shop" was first recorded as British 'pugilistic slang' in Hotten's Slang Dictionary of 1874 : to inflict severe punishment on an opponent was 'to knock him all over the shop'. We leave the last word to the wild man:

"People call me wild. Not really though, I'm not. I guess I've never been normal, not what you call Establishment. I'm Country." Johnny Cash

Six of One by Foxymoron

The title of this article is also a big Internet forum, the appreciation society for The Prisoner. Patrick McGoohan plays Number Six, as all fans of the Prisoner know. Number One in the Prisoner is never revealed, and "Six of One" is a play on Six of One and Half a Dozen of Another, a phrase which first appeared in print in the 18th Century. The earliest known use of the expression occurred in a journal kept by a British naval officer, Ralph Clark, in 1790.

Ken Barnett had six of one and half a dozen of the other on the hand below, and it did not matter which slam he bid, or indeed whether he bid the grand or not, as bidding either slam would have been a top. It is what Andy Robson referred to in a learned article as a "30-point pack", with the opponents' 10 points in spades of no value in defence at all. If one is playing Rubensohl over 2S, one can transfer to hearts, but even playing Lebensohl, one can bid 3H forcing. 4H is not necessary and an underbid. However, After East shows big spade support with 4S, North should now offer a choice of slams with 6C. South can correct to the higher scoring slam, or play the slightly safer 6C. It matters not, as the idiom says.

There is something to be said for South raising to 6C anyway, and 5H+2 was an average. One East-West went on to 5S and that was 800. Robot and Robot had a fine win with a solid 60% today. Which leads me to a quiz question.

Who played Number 5 in The Computer Wears Menace Shoes?

Solutions to Christmas Conundrums

The first of these was relatively easy.

This has to be the layout. On the spade lead, you win in North, cross to the ace of diamonds, finesse the eight of diamonds, cross to the king of spades and finesse the ten of diamonds. East can part with one club and one heart on the diamonds, but when you cash the last diamond he is triple-squeezed. He has to part with a spade, but then the nine of spades squeezes him again. The opening lead of the singleton king of clubs destroys the timing for the progressive squeeze and beats the contract.

The second one was 6NT. This was the layout:

The East-West hands have to be exactly as shown for South to make 6NT. And the only lead to defeat it was a heart, which tangles declarer's entries irreparably. On the diamond lead, South wins and ducks a spade. West now switches to a heart, but you win in South, finesse the nine of clubs, and now cash the remaining clubs throwing diamonds from South. East gets progressively squeezed. 

Both simple when you see it! 

Diamond Sacrifice by Foxymoron

A crossword clue, Diamond sacrifice? (4) had me puzzling, until Stefanie explained the baseball term BUNT where you hit the ball a short distance, usually still in the diamond on the baseball field, and sacrifice yourself for the sake of the team. On the following hand Anne Catchpole and Phil Mattacks found a good sacrifice as well, in diamonds:

When you are at favourable vulnerability you shoud bid aggressively and North's weak jump overcall in diamonds was just right. East bid a normal 4S and South could see six likely diamond tricks, the ace of hearts, and a probable ruff in a black suit, so she found the sacrifice in 5D. It was pretty hard for the opponents to go on to 5S, although this would make, and −500 for 5Dx−3 was a top.

This board helped Anne and Phil to a fine score of 64% comfortably ahead of the second pair. The Sunday Woodberry game on BBO is now at a more convenient time of 7 pm, and is usually over by 9.45 so why not give it a try? It is only $3 and you will play 20 or 21 boards.

The club has decided to resume F2F bridge this Tuesday 4th January, at 7,30, but there will still be an online game for those that don't want to risk it just yet. And the Woodberry Weekend is going ahead on March 11th to 13th. Send Shelley an email to weekends@woodberry.info if you want to go. ASAP.