All Blacks by Foxymoron

One of the most interesting and guessable quiz questions I can recall was "What is the official nickname of the New Zealand Basketball team?" They have no Olympic medals to their name, with the best performances being three Oceania Cup successes, so they are not all-conquering. You can research it on the net if you don't know it. It is Pango Tāroaroa in Maori.

Most know that the New Zealand rugby team, often the best in the world but currently ranked second to the Proteas, an interesting nickname as well, are known as the All Blacks. But this article is about bridge and leads us on to two unusual hands where the Wests picked up 13 black cards, on two separate occasions, less than a couple of months apart. The first was the following, where West, Keith Bush, overcalled 6S over South's 1H. Unsurprisingly he was doubled by North and notched up +1660, a Restoration, as all students of Charles II and the Stuarts know well. 

We move on to July, with almost no rain in between the two hands. It has been too hot for long auctions and this time East-West were able to make a grand. But only two pairs, Tony Mutukisna with Ken Barnett and Raghav Malhotra with Jonathan Bennett bid it.

Malcolm Morris, at my table, produced an eccentric Pass on the West hand as dealer, so we were never reaching grand and took our average in 6S. Raghav opened 1C and North overcalled 4D. Once East found a 4S bid, wild horses would not keep West out of grand and he bid 7S. What are the chances of being dealt 13 cards of the same colour (red or black)? That is relative easy to work out. In Excel it is

=25/51*24/50*23/49*22/48*21/47*20/46*19/45*18/44*17/43*16/42*15/41*14/40

Or, in decimals, 0.0000328. Much more likely than winning the lottery. But twice in two months ... And the other quiz question I recall is what name is given to the victory by 7 and 6 in an 18-hole golf match?

Hat-Trick by Foxymoron

The term hat-trick was first used in cricket in 1858 when H H Stephenson took three wickets with three consecutive deliveries. Since then it has spread to other sports and is used generally for three victories in a short space of time. Such was achieved by one of our members John Pemberton who won the Teltscher Trophy, Garden Cities Trophy and Woodberry Pairs Championship in a couple of months. The picture opposite is from the Teltscher Trophy, also with a Woodberry member, Richard Creamer (left).

I recall John's name cropping up in a quiz in a North London pub, as the inventor of Coca Cola was also a John Pemberton, who created the drink in 1886. I presume no relation. He and Martin Lerner were comfortable winners on just over 60%. There is always some luck when you win an event, and this could have been different:

The auction was reasonable. Lerner and Pemberton were North-South. It was uncontested: 1S - 2H - 3H - 3S - 4D - 4NT - 5H - 5NT - 6H - Pass. It was unclear whether 4NT was key card for hearts or spades, both having been bid and agreed and keen players will want to have a rule for this. One can play it as "six-ace" Blackwood where the kings of both suits are treated as aces, but that requires a special agreement. 

The focus now turns to East and there is strong argument for the "winning" club lead. South cued 4D, not 4C, so he does not have a club control. North does, of course, but there is a good chance that he only has the ace or king. After the passive trump lead, Declarer drew only two rounds of trumps before playing three rounds of spades, and there was no spade ruff.  I say "winning" club lead, as Deep Finesse has no difficulty making an overtrick with a first round spade finesse. I think the best line on the trump lead is to draw three rounds of trumps and then finesse on the first round of spades. Some care is needed. If East is Zia and plays the queen, you cannot afford to win, return to North and finesse the second spade, in case Zia has played the queen from Qx of spades. But ducking is fine.

You don't mind if the first round finesse loses as you have 12 tricks; here you get an unexpected overtrick. NS were the only pair to reach slam, so a lost overtrick was unlikely to cost them much.

Feet of Clay by Foxymoron

 

In King Nebuchadnezzar's dream, Daniel (Daniel 2:31-33), he sees a statue with a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet partly of iron and partly of clay. The image describes human flaws and these play a big part in bridge.  Such was the case on a hand this week.

6NT by South was the popular contract, and three declarers, Liz Clery, Mike Bull and Graham Pollock, made the overtrick. At all of these tables, West discarded a club, not realising that he had a stop. So the declarer was not tested. On a spade lead, you have six diamonds, two spades and one heart and will, perforce, make three club tricks. It is normal to test the clubs first and when you play the ace and another towards the king, East drops the queen. Most defenders with feet of clay will not have Qxx but it does not matter if they do. You cash the ace of hearts, a Vienna Coup, and then the eight pointed-suit winners. West is now squeezed in the rounded suits. If you don't cash the ace of hearts first, then Declarer gets squeezed on the last diamond. If a clever East started with Qxx in clubs, you will still make.

The Vienna Coup predates bridge and was first published by James Clay in the mid nineteenth century after observing it being executed in the days of whist by "the greatest player in Vienna". Nobody know who that was, so the coup might have instead been called The Feat of Clay.

Jack in the Box by Foxymoron

The jack playing card goes back a long way. The knave of coins stems from the turn of the 14th century. It changed from knave to jack in the 19th century. and other names have included lancer. The jack-in-the-box is also very old, from the fifteenth century, and was a popular child's toy. Finding out how the jack popped out was part of the fun.

Finding the knave was the theme of an interesting slam last week. Usually when you are missing five cards including the knave, you play out the ace, king and queen. But not always:

West opened 4C at one table, which was very sensible, and North doubled. South had quite a bit and jumped to 5D, and North decided to bid a sixth and 6D was the final contract. This was a bit pushy but not unreasonable. West led a top club and switched to the king of spades. Now declarer won, cashed the queen of diamonds, and had to decide whether to finesse on the second round. Assuming the clubs are 8-2, then we can calculate the odds for both plays. West has five vacant spaces in which the jack of diamonds might be lurking and East has 11, so the finesse is clear favourite.  And even if West does have two diamonds, East can still have the jack. It is very close, but the "right button should be pressed" and the jack would pop out. It is not good enough to play two top diamonds before finessing, as you need a trump in dummy to ruff a club.

The observant reader might notice that Six Diamonds can only be made by North, not by South. That puzzled me for a while. The king of spades is no good as a lead but a low spade is the key to the box. If declarer wins with the ace and draws trumps and throws clubs on the long hearts, there are still two spade losers. The king of spades does not work as a lead because declarer draws trumps, throws clubs on the long hearts and gives up a spade. And played by North there is no way to stop declarer opening the jack in the box.

And apologies for the lack of any blog for a while. Other projects were on the go.

 

Red Herring by Foxymoron

The literal meaning of red herring dates to at least 1250 AD when Walter of Bibbesworth wrote in The Treatise, “He etep no ffyssh But Heryng red.” Its figurative meaning was discussed on Countdown recently. A theory that "strong-smelling" red herrings were used to distract the hounds from the hare is unlikely to be true.

A 1682 pamphlet printed by Richard Baldwin, defending the Earl of Shaftesbury is an early reference: "But your Lordships business is, to keep your Hounds in full cry, against the pretended Association, for since you cannot find one really in being; a red-herring from your own Kitchen, must be hunted and trail'd through the Kingdom, to make a noise." Unconvincing.

There are quite a few pubs called The Red Herring in Britain. One in Gresham St, London, claims: "Samuel Pepys enjoyed red herrings for his breakfast on the 28th February 1659 while waiting for his boot heel to be mended, so think of Sam when you drink in The Red Herring." As you might expect, this is completely apocryphal.

The jack of diamonds turned out to be a red herring on the following hand this week:

My partner had a nasty guess. He opened 1S, third in hand after two passes, and the auction proceeded 2H-3D-3S-4S-Double-All Pass. 3D, by a passed hand, was a fit-non-jump and showed 4-card spade support. West led a top club and switched to the jack of hearts. Declarer won with the ace, drew trumps in two rounds, and had to tackle the diamonds. Without the jack of diamonds, he would have been forced to play a diamond to the king, relying on the diamonds to be 2-2 with the ace onside.  However this red herring introduced an alternative line of running the jack of diamonds. East won with the queen and the defence still had the top club and the ace of diamonds to come. One off was a top for East-West.

Declarer's line was suspect for two reasons. West surely has the ace of diamonds for his double. If West did have AQx of diamonds, the layout Declarer was playing for, then the opponents would be making 4H. Therefore, 4Sx-1 would get some matchpoints. On the actual hand, the mirror distribution means that 4H does not make for East-West. Finally, the silver bullet is that with AQx of diamonds, West could have given his partner a diamond ruff, and he did not do so. The expression "silver bullet" is also very old:

Walter Scott’s Tales of My Landlord, 1816: "Many a whig that day loaded his musket with a dollar cut into slugs, in order that a silver bullet (such was their belief) might bring down the persecutor of the holy kirk, on whom lead had no power."

Dog's Dinner by Foxymoron

We had a poor auction on one board this week, and I think the blame was entirely mine. The auction was a bit of a dog's dinner. A little research shows that this phrase arose a few years after the similar expression "pig's ear". It first appears in T.F. Benson’s 1902 novel Scarlet and Hyssop, in which a character compares a jumble of leftovers to a “dog’s dinner.” D. W. Barrett’s Life & Work among Navvies, 1880, uses the other expression: “Now, Jack, I’m goin’ to get a tiddley wink of pig’s ear.” But that is just the Cockney rhyming slang for beer and does not indicate something messed up. It is not clear how it came to get its modern meaning.

Our auction was unconvincing: My partner's 1NT as dealer was 15-17 and was pushy - the KR evaluation is only 13.5, despite the three tens. We continued, uncontested, 2D-2H-3C-3NT. I should now bid 4C, shaping out. East's fitting rounded suit cards will help us reach slam, with East bidding 4D and West bidding 6C. Instead I bid 4NT, invitational, and East was quick to put down a green card. With the clubs behaving, 12 tricks rolled in. 6NT is slightly against the odds needing the clubs to come in and a 12th trick in one of the majors. I feared reaching the dreaded 5C (fatal at matchpoints), but that was my excuse for a poor auction. The advantage of playing in clubs may well be that you can ruff out the hearts. Even when partner has Kxx in clubs you may just be able to ruff two hearts in East. On this hand everything works. I was surprised to get above average for 4NT+2.

So a dog's dinner, which reminds me of my neighbour's dog being unwell. When I asked him how he was feeling that day, he replied "Rough".

Solution to Study in Scarlet

This is the full layout. West has 13 penalty cards which must be played as directed by declarer. Clearly 6NT by East-West can only make on a spade lead and the layout is unique.  West is forced to lead the king of spades and declarer wins and cashes four more spades, forcing West to discard clubs, and discarding the blocking jack of clubs reaching this 8-card ending:

Now North leads the two of spades and East is squeezed for the first time. If he discards a scarlet suit, South discards from the other suit and directs West to discard from the same suit as East. Now the top clubs force West to discard from the same suit, and South makes the last four tricks.

If East discards a club, North cashes five rounds of clubs and East is squeezed for a second time. Declarer makes two tricks in the scarlet suit which East unguards, with West being forced to unguard that suit.