Stepping Stone by Foxymoron

I was amazed to find how many songs there were with the title 'Stepping Stone'. You may remember some of them, by The Monkees, Jimi Hendrix, Eminem and more recently by my compatriot Duffy. The phrase has many meanings; in relationships, career moves or garden design, but the bridge meaning is a way of using an opponent's hand to gain access to one of your hands which lacks an entry.

Intrepid Easts opened 1S, but those that passed took their chance to overcall 1S after the normal start of 1D-(Pass)-1H and this invariably led to South declaring 3NT. West led the king and another spade and East usually won to continue spades. Andy Clery won the third spade, unblocked the ace of hearts and cashed four rounds of clubs ending in dummy. East threw a spade on this and Andy now made the mistake of cashing the king of hearts before taking the diamond finesse. Now he could not safely exit with a spade as East might have a heart to play to his partner's winning hearts so he chose to settle for nine tricks and an average.

Instead, declarer should leave the heart stranded in dummy and finesse the diamond immediately. When that holds you can safely exit with a spade and poor East either has to repeat the diamond finesse for you or play a heart to dummy, acting as a stepping stone to allow you to repeat the finesse yourself. Ten tricks would be worth over 80%, so the room (and the country, as it was a SIMs) is not often finding this play. If, instead, East discards the queen of hearts on the last club and keeps a spade winner, now you do cash the king of hearts and East is "stepping-stone-squeezed".

jilljill was the declarer who emerged with twelve tricks when East at her table ducked the second spade and later threw a diamond on the fourth club! Unsurprisingly she scored 100%.

A good result by Gerry Weston

 

Paul Thornton and I had a good result last Tuesday but half of our net IMPS came from one hand.

I wasn’t sure whether to open 1H or 1C but it make no difference; we ended in 5H doubled by Andy - I in the best position, dummy.

King of spades led taken by A; trump to Q and A discovering the 4:0 break. Diamond back taken by Ace and another spade ruffed.

Paul now took the marked trump finesse, drew trumps and all depended on the clubs; he led the Queen and after Bill played the 4 there was an interminable pause.

I could hardly bear to watch it; with trumps all gone we could be 4 down for 1100 if he got it wrong (personally I would have delayed taking the last trump as an insurance against disaster).

But Paul is a good Poker player used to gambling all, played A dropping the K (must have thought Andy had to have K for the double). So plus 13.7 instead of minus about 16

 

Gerry Weston

The Five Level spells Danger by Foxymoron

I recently learnt that there are five levels of Covid-19 alert, and we have not yet reached level 5, which is defined (by the government) as follows:

Level five (red)

Infection spreading at a highly dangerous rate, with the R number significantly above one. The NHS would be overwhelmed with patients, with many hospitals over capacity. This is the situation the Government has managed to avoid so far with it's 'Protect the NHS' strategy.

We would have done well to avoid the five level today on a hand in the Woodberry IMP pairs, but the lure of a potential slam was just too great.

The East hand is awkward after a 1S response to 1C. We were not playing any artificial forcing raise such as 2NT, which (I think) I was playing with David Burn on Saturday when we played a very enjoyable friendly match against Manchester. Here East decided to "make up" 4C which I don't think is right. That should be more like KQxx x Ax AKxxxx as a minimum, and I think West is worth a cue now, despite the potential duplication in hearts. East has probably done enough but pressed on. RKCB showed that there were two key cards missing and East then signed off, at the dangerous five-level. David Burn did well to lead a diamond, and I won and thought that I saw a better line than the trump finesse. I cashed the ace of hearts, crossed to the ace of spades, and discarded a diamond on the king of hearts before playing a second spade. Sadly South had Kx of spades and Frances Loughridge lost no time in giving her partner a club ruff for one off and a double-digit gain. 

An amusing hand. If you overbid to Six Spades, you are forced to make it, as you now need the trump finesse, as well as no club ruff on the go.

A lucrative overtrick

 

Anne Catchpole played well to make an overtrick in 3NT.

Following the Puppet Stayman sequence, it seemed sensible for me to lead AK9 of hearts as I knew Matt held at least four hearts.

However, this also made the position clear to Anne.

She played AK of clubs, Matt discarding a spade.

The 3rd club lead put Matt under pressure. I won the J, but partner had to discard his heart winner to avoid unguarding either spades or diamonds.

Irrespective of my next lead, the 4th round of clubs squeezes East.

This play gave Anne and David a well deserved joint top. Ken Barnett also played the hand in a similar way.

Trump Trickery by Foxymoron

The attempts by Trump to get another "conservative" member of the Supreme Court before the election show his level of trickery. Hopefully the "right-thinking" Republicans will vote against this move, and the Senate will correctly delay the appointment.

"Tricks with trumps" was the theme of this week's hand and John Bernard showed how to make 11 tricks as East despite seemingly having two hearts and a club to lose. 

Jenny's 2H showed hearts and a minor, in the modern style, and Nigel Stuttard elected to show four spades and a heart stop with 3H. Very reasonable as 3NT is quite likely to be the right contract if partner does not have four spades. Maybe he has Jx in hearts for example. East bid 3S and West raised to game. South led a trump, which was as good as anything else, as the battle is to avoid giving the overtrick. Declarer drew trumps, South pitching a heart, and then played the ten of diamonds to the king and the ace of diamonds, dropping the jack.Now he played the queen and nine of diamonds, discarding a club from dummy. 

South threw a club on the first of these, but If he threw another club on the "Curse of Scotland", he would be thrown in with the king of clubs to give East the king of hearts. Therefore he threw a heart, but declarer crossed to the ace of clubs and played a heart to the king. South won and cashed another high heart, but was now forced to yield the eleventh trick to the ten of hearts or the queen of clubs, a trump endplay.

I hope that the endgame will be just as uncomfortable for Donald Trump over the next couple of months. That reminds me of a crossword clue from Private Eye a year or two back:  "Mooning in a suit contract?" (9)

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly by Foxymoron

A number of people have asked how they can have a gentle introduction to online bridge. Three Woodberry groups meet at the weekends for social bridge, free of charge, and would welcome new players as they often struggle to get eight people. On Friday, Andy Conway has a group that starts around 1 pm, and, on Saturday, Stefanie Rohan organises a group at 3pm while on Saturday evening, around 8 pm, Bill Linton runs another group. I am sure you can find the emails of all three if their group interests you, but if not ask a Woodberry officer as we don't normally put emails on a blog because of spam. The heading does not seek to categorise these three groups and was a reference to three interesting hands from a recent match. I am sure you know who played The Good in that film (was it really 1966?) but can you recall who played The Bad and who played The Ugly?

The 16-board match yesterday was between The Goodies and The Baddies. Sadly Tim Brooke-Taylor of the Goodies died (of corona virus) earlier this year. The Baddies was one of their best episodes, featuring as guests Julie Andrews and Liberace, and was also known as "The Nicest Person in the World" and "Double Trouble". But enough waffle. On to the bridge:

The Good

Chantal did well to bid three times on her powerful 13-count, and doubled 2ª to show good spades and then bid her five-card heart suit. Ken Barnett had no problem raising to the good game, and Liz Clery increased the loss with a double. There was no defence, as declarer just lost a spade, a diamond and a club, with no guess in the heart suit. I wonder, if East had bid 4¨ on the second round, whether NS would have reached game. And the sacrifice is only 300 but Gerry did not want to bid "one more for the road". A tough hand.

The Bad

If the first one was good, this was definitely bad with the blame entirely on East for the missed game. The hand is far too good for a weak two, and should be opened at the one-level,. after which even the most timid West would bid game. Given that xx KT9xxx xx KTx would have no play for game, Liz's 3© looks normal. Bidding 2NT then 3© should be a stronger invite, asking partner to go to game unless dreadful. 3©, while it is pass/correct, does not stop partner bidding 4© or 4ª over it, contrary to popular belief. It should say "I have three hearts and three or more spades, and am happy to play at the 3-level opposite a real ugly hand. But East's hand here is very good, not bad, and he should bid game.

The Ugly

What do you call an eight-card suit? The linguist might say "octonary", but the bridge player just says "trumps".  Chantal followed the latter advice when she wasn't have any of defending Four Hearts. The focus was on Bill Linton, North, who made the fairly normal lead of the ace of hearts. Now, South knew North had five hearts, and North knew South had four hearts and South knew that North knew that South had four hearts, and both knew that West had a singleton heart! South's card should therefore be suit preference, but he played an ugly and unclear five. He should play either the two, asking for a diamond which is probably best, or the jack asking for a spade, which will also do the trick. When Bill thought Tim's five asked for a passive heart, saying "don't kill my queen of spades or jack of diamonds" he played a second one and that was that. And South should bid 4¨, fit, instead of 4© on the first round of the auction which will help; an opportunity missed by East on the first hand! This rounded off a big win for The Baddies, by 58-22.

So, always think what partner knows that you know ... Which reminds me of the group of three logicians going into their regular real-ale pub.

"Are we all having Ruddles?", asked the barman?

"I don't know." replied the first;

"I also don't know." replied the second;

"Yes we all are", replied the third.

How do you explain that?

The Squeeze by Foxymoron

The Squeeze by Kenneth Price

There is always something special about bidding and making 7NT, even if it is too ambitious, and such was the case here. The first two bids by West were replicated at many tables and the decision comes on East's second turn:

If my partner showed two of the two three honours, I would probably bid 7H as East. Although that might need trumps 3-2 and a guess in a side-suit, I will be well-placed in practice with a possible ruffing spade finesse, not available in 6NT. Not to mention that playing in no-trumps could be catastrophic if hearts are 4-1 or worse, which will happen 32% of the time. Bidding 6H is also fine, as you are more likely to make an overtrick safely, and can still make when hearts are 4-1. At our table Steven Paul and Judith Hughes got an average for the very sensible auction 2H-6H.

How should you play 7NT on the ten of clubs lead from South, covered by the jack, queen and ace? Both Andy Conway and Steve Coulter reached the grand, in the spirit of the late Kenny Rogers' song, The Gambler. I can almost hear him sing:

"If you're gonna play the game, boy

You gotta learn to play it right." 

They combined their chances well by cashing the ace and king of diamonds, the king of clubs, a top spade, and six rounds of hearts. They had the genuine chance of the spade-diamond squeeze, much better than 50% as it shows up when North has both queens. It also drops the doubleton queen of spades offside, or the doubleton queen of diamonds in either hand, and one can always judge to fall back on the spade finesse if one thinks that is right. When South didn't discard a spade or a diamond, they judged well that South had both ladies and dropped the queen of spades to share the top. The more prudent Mike and Carrie Eden in 7H had to be content with 80% but they were quite happy with that. One of the advantages of playing the squeeze is that you can safely play for an overtrick in either 6NT or 6H, and don't ever risk going off. The pair that went two off in 7NT can console themselves that going one off would not have been any matchpoints either!