Threats by Foxymoron

All squeezes in bridge require threats. Either two threats as in the simple squeeze which is usually positional, or three threats as in the double squeeze where both opponents are squeezed in turn.  Which reminds me of one of my favourite crossword clues: Threat perhaps perceived by Alice? (3, 6). But I digress. A hand at the Woodberry this week was particularly interesting as the right line of play was not clear and one wanted to combine a simple finesse with a potential squeeze.

John Bernard was the only declarer to bid and make 6S. It is quite difficult to reach and not so clear that you want to be there. Making 12 tricks in spades would have been well above average. South should call a spade a spade as he is not quite good enough for 2C. North should bid 3S with eight losers, and now South will surely bid 6S.  The idiom "calling a spade a spade" originates in the classical Greek of Plutarch's Apophthegmata Laconica, and was introduced into the English language in 1542 in Nicolas Udall 's translation of the Apophthegmes, where Erasmus had seemingly replaced Plutarch's images of "trough" and "fig" with the more familiar "spade". "Not many people know that!" Michael Caine might have said. And I have gone off topic again.

In 6S if West leads a club it is easy as now declarer has three club tricks. Say that he leads a heart. South will win, cash the ace and king of diamonds, discarding a club and ruff a diamond to find they do not break, West being forced to part with a club. Now it is normal to take the spade finesse and West wins and returns a spade. It looks right now to take a discard on the king of hearts, but that would be fatal; it is needed as the squeeze card. The winning line is to ruff a heart, draw the trump, cross to the king of clubs and only now cash the king of hearts, squeezing East in the minors. West has already been forced to part with a club and now East has to do the same.

Of course this did not happen and the defence went wrong quite quickly with East pitching a diamond at some point.

Ruff Justice by Foxymoron

When the opponents reach game and you have AKxx in their trump suit you might be reluctant to double as it could help them in the play, but usually the bad break cannot be managed, and if they make they are probably getting a top anyway. Such was the situation with a hand in the Children in Need SIMs this week, where declarer needed to find an unusual line to make the contract.

After two passes, East opened 1H and South bid 2NT, unusual, showing the minors. West competed with 3H and East pressed on to game. As North I did not think 4H making would be a good score for NS, so I doubled and partner led a normal diamond to the jack, king and ace. Declarer set about his task well, ruffing a diamond and ruffing a club, and now tried to ruff another diamond in dummy. This would have worked well if the diamonds were 5-3, but on the actual layout North was able to overruff, and play ace and another heart, leaving declarer a trick short.

The winning line was a surprising one. After ruffing one diamond and one club, East needs to cash the ace, king and ten of spades. South cannot ruff, and now declarer can ruff a spade in dummy for his tenth trick. Declarer loses two trumps and a diamond. It is surprising that declarer needs to ruff the fourth spade, rather than the third diamond, but the evidence was all there. The lack of a trump lead and the double suggested that trumps are 4-0. Also East needs to drop the doubleton QJ of spades so needs South to be 2-0-6-5. 

It was a bit harsh that the alternative line of ruffing the diamond failed, but it did have an element of rough justice, an expression which goes back to Roman times.

And the play problem in the slam that your scribe had with Colin Elliott from last week was tough. You need to play for QJ doubleton in hearts and spades and the jack of clubs onside. But you need more. Win the spade lead in South, and play the queen of clubs. If East wins and returns a spade you win and now cash the hearts and the ace of diamonds. West who began with 987x QJ QTx Jxxx gets squeezed. East (R. Merchant) chastised West for not finding the diamond lead, but he relented when the board was taken away.

Heart of Gold by Foxymoron

This week was the funeral of Colin Elks, known to all his bridge friends by his mother's maiden name, Colin Elliott. He had a debilitating illness all his life, but he coped with it stoically even when it deteriorated over the last few years. I played with him once a month for around 20 years and he was a fine player and he enjoyed tinkering with his beloved Precision. He played it with several partners: Nigel Freake, Ken Barnett, Martin Baker and, for a while when he was in this country, the noted pianist Alex Panizza. He was also a frequent partner of Chantal Girardin.

He had a love of music, and knew all the Abba songs, and was a great fan of Nottingham Forest, in particular the golden era under Brian Clough. And it was notable to learn at his funeral how helpful he was to his friends and family, often driving them through London and beyond. He had a spell as a mini-cab driver and certainly "had the knowledge". When he could no longer drive, that was a major blow, and also led to him giving up bridge. He loved the quips and camaraderie at the table, and did not take to online bridge at all. He also "had the knowledge" of our bidding system in bridge, and one of our luckiest, and I suppose unluckiest, auctions was on the following hand, many years ago, after he had introduced the "two-way heart" to the Precision system.

I was out to lunch in the auction. 1C was strong and 1D was 0-7. Now 1H was 2-way showing hearts or 20+ and 1S was a relay. 1NT was 20+ and 2C asked. We played steps after that at the time, as my old system notes showed, so 2NT was 26-27. Colin's 6NT concluded the auction. So, how did I bring this home? Solution next week.

Whether or not you make it, the TD will arrive shortly later to replace your other board and tell you that you have the wrong board. So, you are getting 40% on the board you should have played as you spent far too long trying to make 6NT on a board that you were not scheduled to play.

Colin accepted this bit of bad luck (or was it my usual incompetence) in the same way as he accepted life, uncomplainingly. 

As Kipling said: 

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same ...

The phrase "heart of gold" originated in the late 1500s. It was first seen in William Shakespeare’s play Henry V, in which Pistol describes his master as "a bawcock, and a heart of gold". Colin was certainly a bawcock.