Thick and Thin by Foxymoron

The phrase (through) "thick and thin" comes from Old English, and was originally "through thicket and thin wood", meaning to cope with difficulties and to enjoy easier periods. The earliest known reference is from Chaucer's The Reeve's Tale

And whan the hors was laus, he gynneth gon

Toward the fen, ther wilde mares renne,

And forth with “wehee,” thurgh thikke and thurgh thenne.

In some usage, thick and thin are antonyms. But not in bridge. Thick in bridge is not a compliment, and indicates that you have done something stupid. As in Henry IV, Part 2:

Hang him baboon, his wit’s as thicke as Tewksbury mustard.

I was certainly thick, and felt like a baboon, in last week's duplicate when I only made seven tricks on the following hand in 1NT as North:

East led a normal spade, and West played the king, and I played the jack, the card I was planning to play on the next round ... Not really a mispull, just thick. Now the defence cashed five rounds of spades, and could have beaten me two tricks if they had switched to a club, but +90 was hardly any match points anyway.

Thin in bridge is not the opposite of thick, but refers to a contract, usually slam or game, that has a very low chance of success. Such was the case with the following hand.

We bid 1H-(2C)-3C*-(4C)-6H-All Pass. Three Clubs was a good raise. My partner was a bit unlucky that my ace of clubs was of no value and that there was a trump loser. But was there? West led the ace of diamonds, and another diamond. South won and now effectively gave up by cashing the ace of hearts. However, as the chess grandmaster Savielly Tartakower said, "No game is won by resigning".  A singleton king of trumps is about as much use as a chocolate teapot, an expression which appears to be mid-20th century.

Declarer should have crossed to dummy with a spade, and run the queen of hearts. East can cover, but you cross again in spades and run the eight of hearts to bring home your thin slam. This was the only chance and mirabile dictu it would have worked.

How thin is the slam? Quite easy to calculate as the chance of East having three hearts and West one is about 25%, and you need a singleton jack with West, which occurs one quarter of that time. So, about 6.25%. How thick was my partner? I will leave you to judge!

Quincunx by Foxymoron

Quincunx is not just a high-scoring word in Scrabble or similar word games. It is also another name for the Galton Board, which illustrates both the binomial distribution and the normal distribution and allows one to understand the distribution of cards in bridge as they "fall from the sky". The illustration below is from the science museum in Oregon:

Balls drop from the top of the machine and, at each peg that they hit, they randomly go right or left and settle at the bottom in a bell-shaped curve. This is similar (but not the same) as the dealer from above in bridge, who has to allocate each of the 26 missing cards to one of the two opponents. The difference is that there is a constraint that each person should get 13. I say "should" in that 12 or 14 sometimes occur at the Woodberry!

 "What are the chances of 7NT making on the hand below?" asked my partner this week. My first guess was much lower than it should have been:

We bid sensibly, uncontested, 1H-2NT (Jacoby)-3H (extras)-4NT (RKCB)-5S (2+Q)-5NT (please cue kings)-6C (king of clubs or both pointed kings)-7H. Only half the field bid the grand, so bidding 7NT would have been both wrong and greedy. There are slim chances of ♦JT9 or ♣QJ but essentially it needs the queen and jack of clubs to be with the diamond guard, or one opponent to be 4-5 in the minors or longer. Once you give one of the opponents 4 or more diamonds, the Galton pegs will tend to send the queen or jack of clubs to his partner more often than not, so the chances of success will be less than 25%, although the extra chance of any five clubs will make it close to that. 

Some software I have, called Bridge Analyser, quickly played 1000 hands with the NS cards and found that 7NT made 25.5% of the time, so the chances that the same player is 4-5 or longer in the minors compensates for the fact that the person with four or more diamonds is less likely to have both the queen and jack of clubs.

VIRKs by Foxymoron

Bridge conventions are only of use if you are both playing the same one.  It is good to have agreements in slam bidding and a surprisingly large percentage of the field in this week's EBED SIMs missed grand here:

The auction at the table of the Woodberry winners, Mike Bull and John Bernard, was 1D-1S-4C*-4NT-5H-5NT*-6D-7S-All Pass. 4C was a splinter and 4NT RKCB. Mike and John do not show voids in response to RKCB, so 5H was 2 without the queen. 6D showed the king of diamonds, but not the king of hearts. A good method is that 5NT asks for specific kings, and then you bid the one you have or the one you don't have when you have two! It was easy now to bid 7S.

How does one show a void in response to RKCB? Some play that 5NT is two key cards and a void. Others play that it is an odd number of key cards  and a void ... One can see wheels coming off now and the apple cart being upset, and indeed only a quarter of the field bid the grand. Both of these metaphors predate bridge and are from the earliest days of transportation.

A better method, when one side has splintered, is that a raise of the splinter is a VIRK, asking partner to include a void in that suit as a key card, but to respond normally with a singleton. Here, South just bids normally as 5C by North would have been the VIRK, and South knows North does not care if the splinter is a void or not.

The Tyger by Foxymoron

A hand last night at the Woodberry reminded me of a poem by Blake. The following illustration is in the British Museum:

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

It was the symmetry of the two plausible plays on the following hand that caught my eye:

Our auction was (Pass)-1D-(2C)-2D-(3C)-3D-All Pass. West led two top clubs and switched to a spade. Now there are two symmetrical lines as you can only afford one trump loser as you can never avoid a heart loser. The first is to win in dummy, and lead a low diamond to the jack. The second is to win in South and lead the jack of diamonds. The former works when East has a doubleton honour, the latter when West has a doubleton honour. Both are just under 24%, but only one of these is given in the Dictionary of Suit Combinations. My future title Complete Card Combinations remedies that.

My partner unluckily chose the latter line, getting below average. It is the right line at matchpoints as it only goes one off when East has D KQ9x. On this occasion, running the jack was the winning line, which makes the contract whether or not West covers.

Grand Scheme by Foxymoron

Nobody bid a grand on the following hand and there is a lot of work to do to make 13 tricks. Four pairs reached the good 6S and three of them made it. I think the unlucky declarer, Jeremy Schryber, played the right line and he failed on the actual layout:

The auction at our table was, uncontested, 1S-4C*-4D=4H-4NT-5D-6S. 4C was a splinter agreeing spades and two cue bids and RKCB led to slam. South led the queen of hearts, as West had not shown a heart suit, and had just cued hearts. Declarer won in dummy, and, very sensibly but fatally, played to ruff two clubs in dummy. He played a club to the ace, ruffed a club, played a diamond to the ace and ruffed a club. North overruffed and played a diamond and now declarer was two off as South could overtake and play another club.

In 7S, I think you have to play to set up the hearts, ruffing the second heart low and the third heart high. There is a big danger of losing a trump then, but with trumps 2-2 you will set up the hearts and can draw trumps and enjoy the hearts. In 6S, this line makes an overtrick, but it is also the only making line. After playing a club at trick two, declarer can no longer make. But this is only because the clubs are 6-2. Swap the minor suit deuces, and Jeremy would have made. Swap the black sevens instead and 7S cannot make and the only winning line now is to play three rounds of hearts, ruffing low in East, getting overruffed but still making the contract.

I think, in the grand scheme, one should choose the line that is most likely to make the contract, and that depends on whether you are in a small slam or a grand slam. The origin of "grand scheme" seems to be early 18th century about introducing social reform, although it appears in writings by Shakespearean commentators:  "Emilia refuses to stop talking and continues to reveal more information about the grand scheme to take Othello down."

Just a MInute by Foxymoron

The radio programme Just a Minute is a panel game which has been running for nearly 60 years, and was hosted by Nicolas Parsons for most of that time. The object of the game is for panelists to talk for sixty seconds on a given subject, "without hesitation, repetition or deviation". Our table would have breached the rules of that game more than once in a hand this week:

As dealer I had a choice between a conservative 3S and an aggressive 4S. My fellow Welsh International Richard Plackett would have chosen the latter, and he may be right, as he has just won the British Isles Trophy to add to his seasonal collection over the last year.

North might have raised to 4S but decided to pass and East had an awkward bid. There was a bit of a hesitation and after a while he decided to bid 3H, which was a deviation, from the rules of the game, in that spades rank above hearts.

The director was called and advised South of his rights. If he did not accept the bid of 3H, then East would have to make it sufficient, and if the sufficient bid was not a comparable call, his partner would be silenced. East was not allowed to substitute double.

I decided that repetition was the best choice for South, and accepted the 3H bid, and rebid 3S. We had no agreement, of course, but I thought that this would show a good pre-empt and short hearts. North elected to pass again and East now decided to double for takeout. He has already shown his hearts, as the 3H bid is now treated as legal, so he does not need to bid them again. West bid 4C, and all passed. I think North might have ventured Four Spades at one of his three turns to call, but he was quite happy with the repetition of his Pass.

So the full auction was 3S-Pass-Pass-3H-3S-Pass-Pass-Double-Pass-4C-All Pass

We defended it well, North cashing the ace of spades on which South played the three, suit-preference for diamonds. If South had a heart void, then he would should play the ten of spades, suit preference for hearts. Normally the king is just used to show the queen in this position but some would play that it is suit preference - the highest card South can afford. North switched to the queen of diamonds and the defence took three tricks in that suit, but this was below average for NS who can make 11 tricks in spades, and they should have at least got to game!

In the US, you are not allowed agreements subsequent to the opponents' insufficient bids, but in the UK you are. So I suggest:

After 3S-(Pass)-Pass-(3H) I suggest you play:

a) Pass - happy to defend 4H. No desire to go to 4S but happy for partner to go back to 3S

b) Double - takeout with extra shape. Possibly 7-1-(4 1)

c) 3S - good pre-empt, short hearts, happy for partner to raise.

d) 3NT - solid spades and nothing outside. Maybe AKQJxxx xx xx xx

e) Not accepting the insufficient bid which is corrected to 4H. Now

e1) Pass - does not want partner to bid 4S. 

e2) Double - action. Partner passes or bids 4S

e3) 4S - walking the dog. What you should have opened all along. Best to have a short hesitation before the bid, with a feigned expression of discomfort.

Of course only Charlie the Chimp (a Doctor of Deviation)  knows how to get the best from this situation. 

Felo de Se by Foxymoron

When there was a death by suicide in the middle ages, it was classed as a felo de se, and the assumption was that it must have been a mental illness. The Interments (felo de se) Act 1882 allowed any person committing "criminal suicide" to be buried at any hour with the usual rites and removed some of the stigma from the suicide. Previously he or she had to be buried "silently" between 9 pm and midnight.

In bridge, the phrase was used by Victor Mollo in his menagerie series, for a suicide squeeze, in which one of the defenders cashes winners and squeezes his partner. The Hideous Hog always took great pleasure in forcing Papa and his partner to conduct a suicide squeeze. Such was the case on a hand at the Woodberry this week. In a slightly different way:

After the uncontested auction 1NT-2C-2D-3NT, East quite naturally led a fourth-best diamond. Declarer, Mike Bull, tried the jack from dummy, and ducked West's queen, but then won the second round with the ace, East playing the two. There are two possible lines. One is to play for spades 3-3 which will give 9 tricks, but it probably won't cost to cross to dummy with a spade and exit with a third round of diamonds. East wins, and can cash two more rounds of diamonds, on which West can pitch a heart and a spade, but then two more rounds of spades by declarer squeezes West in the rounded suits. Alternatively, East can switch to a spade without cashing the last diamond, but declarer can now make by cashing three rounds of spades, forcing a heart or club discard from West, and then setting up the long heart or club.

What is the best line? I think against most players you cash two rounds of spades, ending in South. Often one or both of the defenders will give count, and you can plan your play accordingly. But it will only be wrong to exit with a diamond if they are 6-2.