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.

A Study in Scarlet by Foxymoron

"What do you make of this traveller?", asked Holmes, arriving at the Baker St Bridge Club, 221b Baker Street.

"Very odd," replied Watson. "It must have been mis-boarded, I presume. EW made slam (6NT, 6H or 6D) at all tables except one in which NS made 7NT and one where 6NT went one off by EW."

"On the contrary, the result was correct." "But did you not notice that EW were Lord Dunsany and his wife Lady Beatrice Child Villiers?"

"Good gracious, how did you deduce that?", responded Watson.

"Elementary," responded Holmes, "Lady Villiers has a bad habit of showing her hand to her partner before the opening lead. Also the writing of 7NT= is of one who is an expert in Calligraphy, and a writer of some 90 books would have that skill. And he always scores, whichever seat he is in. They clearly reached 6NT by East and West showed her hand to her partner before the final pass."

Holmes continued: "Now South, a chap called Charlie, bid 7NT and was entitled to treat every West card as a major penalty card. It is a simple matter now, Watson, for you to construct the whole deal. 7NT cannot be beaten even by best defence. And East does not have any penalty cards. You do need to know that 6NT can only be made on a spade lead and this makes the EW hands unique."

So, over to you. Solution after Xmas.

Carelessness by Foxymoron

Oscar (Wilde, not the Owl) might have said that to go off in one slam may be regarded as a misfortune, but to go off in two looks like carelessness. But this was not the case on Tuesday, despite the declarer's claim that his brain was not working. In one of the two slams he correctly played for a 2-2 break in trumps with nine trumps missing the queen. But on this occasion one of the opponents had Qxx. 

The other hand was particularly unlucky:

I am impressed by the new design on Bridgewebs, above, which is very attractive. North-South reached 6NT at one table by North, which is a bit pushy with a combined count of only 28 points. After a club lead won by North, however, declarer can make. He should cash a top heart, playing for his normal best chance of the queen dropping doubleton. East plays the queen, perforce. A Woman of No Importance, one might think, but not so. Now crossing to the ace of clubs and leading the nine of hearts is the right line. West should duck, of course, but if declarer thinks East is not capable of false-carding from ❤️QT doubleton he should run it. It only remains to guess the spades, and declarer will make one spade, five hearts, two diamonds and four clubs, using the ace of diamonds as an entry for the hearts.

Unluckily, at the table of the declarer in 6NT, East fished out the nine of diamonds for his opening lead. The effect of this was deadly, as whichever hand declarer wins in, the contract can no longer be made. If he wins in North, cashes the ace of hearts, crosses to the ace of clubs and leads the nine of hearts, West ducks and declarer can get to dummy with the ace of diamonds for the winning hearts, but then cannot make a spade trick without losing a trick to the jack of diamonds.  

Ten-card Suits by Foxymoron

It is very rare that one picks up a ten-card suit in bridge, 0.0017% according to Wikipedia, but this happened twice recently at the Woodberry. And on both occasions the optimal contract was rarely reached. This was the first of them:

A couple of players opened 2C and reached 7NT. Fortunately they were not playing against Secretary Birds who could have called the director and recited the clause in the Blue Book specifying the minimum standard for a strong 2C opening:

(b) Above 1D at least 16 HCP, or 13 HCP in two suits containing 10+ cards.

I think the right opening bid is 4NT, specific ace-asking, but this should be modified so that partner's response will never take you too high. Partner should always bid his lowest ace, but 5D must be a minor-suit ace, as you should never respond 6C. Another approach is to open 2C and then jump to 4D asking partner to cue an ace if she has one. Nothing is perfect, but on this hand anything sensible should get you to 7D, which your scribe and his partner did not manage. 

A week later, this hand occurred:

Now an opening 2C is permitted, but might not be best. East is sure to bid over it and indeed it is East-West's hand, and poor old North has to save in 6C if EW reach 5D. Quite a good method over 2C is that 3C shows either 6 clubs or short clubs, and this would work well on the East hand. "Walking the dog" is a good strategy for North on this hand.

Both hands had scores all over the shop. This expression seems to originate from The Era in 1862. “We have two men to go in and want eight runs to win, but I think we shall just do it, as ——’s fellows are bowling all over the shop;”

And the answers to the quiz last time. Arshavin was the footballer who scored four times in a Premiership match in 2009 without being on the winning side. Arsenal blew a 4-0 half-time lead against Newcastle and drew 4-4 in 2011.  And the three London derbies to end 4-4 are Arsenal v Spurs and Spurs v Chelsea, both in 2008 and, the tough one, Charlton v West Ham 2001.

4-4 by Foxymoron

The heading was a round in a football quiz I attended in a pub. It concerns the remarkable 16 Premiership games that have ended 4-4. I decided it was too obscure and difficult for the Woodberry Weekend quiz and Shelley concurred. But it did pose some interesting questions. Who was the only person (below) to score 4 goals in a Premiership match and not be on the winning side? Which team led 4-0 at half-time and did not win? Three London derbies (in the Premiership) ended with the score of 4-4. Two are relatively easy, but the third ....? Answers next time ...

What has this got to do with bridge, you may ask? Well, the Stayman convention is used to locate a 4-4 fit after a 1NT opening. I (and some top players) think that it is used far too often and bidding 3NT is usually better.  And it is not always right to respond to Stayman with a 4-card major. My "Bols Tip" is that you should suppress a 4-card major if you have an honour in each of the other suits and are (4333). As in the following hand:

Stefanie Rohan passed the North hand and I opened a 12-14 NT in third seat. Some would pass again on Stefanie's hand but she decided to bid Stayman as that was her only way to invite game. 2NT would have been a transfer to diamonds. I bid 2D, denying a 4-card major on the South hand and raised 2NT to 3NT. I now think that I should pass 2NT, despite having 14 Miltons, as the Kaplan-Rubens evaluation of the hand is only 12.4. Making 2NT+1 would have been 70%. Still, nothing succeeds like success, and with all the heart honours onside 3NT was a cakewalk and this was a joint top. 4H would have been hopeless.

"Nothing succeeds like success" was first put into print by Sir Arthur Helps, in Realmah, 1868: Rien ne réussit comme le succès. And Graham Horscroft included "cakewalk" in his Woodberry Weekend quiz - it gets its name from a 19th Century dance in the USA.

As I write, Arsenal are 4 points clear, but will it be 4 runners-up spots in a row? Always the bridesmaid never the bride. The phrase originated from a Victorian music hall song titled "Why Am I Always A Bridesmaid?" written in 1917.

The whole event was a great success and well run by Shelley Shieff and Nigel Freake and all the results are on the website.

Six of One by Foxymoron

A hand at the Woodberry this week reminded me of the phrase "six of one and half a dozen of the other". For two reasons. One is that it did not matter how the opponents defended. The other reason was because partner had a powerful 6-6 in the majors, and bid it to its full extent. The phrase, meaning that both options are equal, derives from the writings (ramblings?) of the British naval officer Ralph Clark in 1790:

It is impossible to trust any one of our men hardly much more any of the Convicts; in Short there is no difference between Soldier Sailor or Convicts there. Six of the one and half a Dozen of the other —— old Elliock was a man Majr. Ross placed the greatest confidence in and he and Ancott have Repaid the Major for the Confidence he placed in them as all Rascals.

In that case, there was no difference between the military and the convicts. In the hand this week there was no difference between the two potential defences or the two potential contracts:

At our table South opened 1S, and West overcalled 2C, slightly light, but important to get in to the auction. North passed and East bid 3NT.  With his powerful two-suiter, South "three-bet", as they say in poker, with 4H and it did not matter whether North corrected to 4S or not. Both game contracts would have made. North did bid 4S and several Easts doubled, and found there was no defence. Stefanie Rohan and Ken Rolph were one of the beneficiaries of a double, on their way to a convincing and deserved first place.  After all East does have a weak NT and partner has made a vulnerable overcall. And it is six of one and half a dozen of another whether West leads a trump or not. With both majors breaking 3-2 there are but three losers on either defence.

"Nothing I could do about that", commented East at our table. "Well," I responded, "with both majors stopped and a fit for partner you might have bid a natural 4NT". "You weren't getting rich from defending 4S, were you?"

Duck or Grouse by Foxymoron

I once attended a meeting of the London Collectors' Society, which concentrates on coins, notes and comics. One of the attendees had a collection of Duck or Grouse pub signs, some of which I suspect had been stolen. Reports of pubgoers hitting their head on a low beam have increased dramatically since the miscreant built up his collection of over a hundred different specimens.

The following hand was a missed opportunity for a successful duck, and the failure to find it could well have been because declarer had hit his or her head on a low beam. 

South opened a weak 2S and this came round to East who bid 2NT. Minimum but acceptable in view of the intermediates. West raised to 3NT and South led a spade round to East's queen, so this should not have been a problem. East led the jack of diamonds, covered by the queen and king ... But now declarer could no longer make it. The diamonds were blocked and attempts to endplay North or South do not work. If South's queen of diamonds was a singleton, nothing could be done, but as the cards lie, ducking works. South can establish the spades, but declarer makes two spades, five diamonds, the ace of hearts and can lead towards the king of clubs for his ninth trick. This requires the partner of the weak two opener to have the ace of clubs, a reasonable chance.

Going off in 3NT was worth precisely 0 matchpoints, a duck or "duck's egg", a term more commonly used in cricket, and apparently just from the shape of the 0.

The meaning of grouse, to complain, goes back to at least 1885 and is thought to be Army slang, possibly derived from the Old French groucier. North-South were not grousing as this board helped them to win on the night.

 

Careless Talk by Foxymoron

There is a tendency among top players to play that a double of 1NT is not for penalties. The opponents will often run somewhere if one has a weak hand, as will our partner of course. Equally importantly you will be telling the opponents that you have, say, 15+ high-card points. Careless Talk posters from the Second World War are collectors' items and sell for many thousands of pounds on Ebay. An example:

My partner did well to "keep schtum" on the following hand and reaped the benefits:

West opened a weak no-trump and North sensibly kept quiet. If he had doubled, then South would have been most unhappy. He would have been happier if he had a side bet on whether he would have been dealt a perfect Yarborough at the true odds of 1800-1, but otherwise he would have had nowhere to go. If East could redouble as "business" then North-South would be facing -1560.

After North passed, East bid Stayman which was his only way to invite game. West bid 2S and East bid 2NT. West was quite happy to accept and 3NT became the final contract. North led the queen of clubs and declarer can count seven tricks, two clubs, two hearts, two spades and a diamond. Not unreasonably he took two diamond finesses for his contract but the defence was now able to establish five tricks - two clubs, two diamonds and the ace of spades. One down and a top.

Schtum is one of many Yiddish words which have come into English, with several alternative spellings. Another theory is that it is prison slang. The earliest citation of it in print in English is in Frank Norman’s book Bang to Rights: an account of prison life, 1958:

“I think it’s much better to keep shtoom.”

“You can always shtoomup if any screws are earholeing.”

Hoorah Henry by Foxymoron

The penalty of 1100 is sometimes known as a Henry after the seizure of the throne by Henry I in 1100. The above depicts Henry holding the Church of Reading Abbey in a miniature by Matthew Paris, c.1253. I was reminded of Henry on a hand this week from the Woodberry:

I know for sure that at least one West overcalled one of Two Diamonds, Three Diamonds or Four Diamonds. I think the middle one is "just right", as Goldilocks would say. Four Diamonds is too much and can be taken for 1100. At the table where this occurred, North-South were playing penalty doubles at the Four level and North had no difficulty applying the axe. He was too polite to call Hoorah when the hand was over, but West was really the Hoorah Henry (or Henrietta). Perhaps Damon Runyon was thinking of such bids when he wrote, in 1936, "He is without doubt strictly a Hoorah Henry, and he is generally figured as nothing but a lob as far as ever doing anything useful in this world is concerned." But bridge had not yet been invented and it is unclear why the name Henry was chosen. I guess it could have been Hoorah Harvey or Hoorah Harry.

At our table, we missed the chance to collect this penalty, as North did not pass over 4D and chose to double. South bid 4H which ended the auction. The top spot is 3NT which will normally make the same number of tricks, and North chose that when West bid only 3D.

To get a good score in either you need to make 12 tricks. There are various squeezes which can work, and much depends on whether both opponents guard spades or clubs. If West has only bid 3D, then you will probably play him to be 2-1-7-3 or 3-1-7-2 and will have to read the ending. Assume West leads a diamond, you run it round and now draw trumps and then duck a round of spades. They play a second round and you win with the ace and now cash the ace of diamonds throwing a club, come to hand with the king of clubs and run the remaining hearts. On the layout, East gets squeezed in the black suits. If West is also guarding clubs, he will be squeezed out of that guard by the threat of the jack of diamonds in dummy. Playing for clubs 3-3 is an alternative line, but that is putting all your eggs in one basket.

And I nearly forgot. F. Scott Fitzgerald was named after Francis Scott Keys, the composer of the Star Spangled Banner, so that tells you what the F stands for.

Rose-Coloured Glasses by Foxymoron

The above expression first appeared in Thomas Hughes' novel Tom Brown at Oxford in 1859, and was also used more recently in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and in John Lennon's song Imagine. As my father-in-law points out, the phrase also featured in Jacques Offenbach’s Opera The Tales of Hoffmann. It indicates an unduly optimistic outlook, and Nigel Freake and your author exhibited that trait when overreaching to Four Spades on the hand below.

After 1NT by South, 12-14, and a transfer of 2H by North, East came in quite soundly with Three Clubs. South tried to show where his values lay with 3H, promising four spades, but a maximum, which seems too pushy. North was also wearing his rose-coloured glasses and bid Four Spades. East began with two top clubs and West discarded a low diamond, clearly showing at least the king, when playing reverse attitude. However, East did not know whether a third club was needed, and continued with the queen of clubs, If West had JTx of spades, for example, it would promote a trump trick. Declarer ruffed with the queen and West overruffed, but that was the end of the defence as declarer now had five spades, four hearts and the ace of diamonds. 

A more testing defence would be to discard on the third club, but declarer can still make. If West discards a heart, declarer can play on trumps finessing the eight on the second round if necessary and can then overtake the second heart. On a diamond discard, declarer plays a spade to the eight and then knocks out the ace of spades. He can later play all the trumps and squeeze West in the red suits. But a more challenging defence.

Clearly a diamond switch at trick three would have beaten the contract fairly easily but did you see how West could have protected his partner? If West had ruffed the SECOND club and led the king of diamonds, declarer would have had no recourse as there would clearly be four losers.

And a final poser. What does the F stand for in F. Scott Fitzgerald?  And what was his full name and who was he named after?

The Big Slick by Foxymoron

The Big Slick is an expression that I am only aware of in Poker, for ace, king (ideally in the same suit) as two hole cards. It is a very powerful hand and was named after the Santa Barbara disastrous oil slick of 1969, but its origin may go back to Roman times. It was very kind this week to Michael Mizrachi who won the first prize of $10,000,000 in the WSPOP final table persuading a fold with JJ and getting lucky against KK, by hitting an ace on the river, when he was a 30-70 dog.

He is a distant relative of the outspoken Haredi Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi and he is a fine backgammon player, who I met in Las Vegas. in Atlanta, Youtube showed four hours of the final table, free, and it was most enjoyable. 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1945268686539121105 gives the crucial hand.

A hand at the Woodberry this week reminded me of the importance of the big slick in the trump suit and why Keycard Blackwood was invented to diagnose that you had the king of trumps as well as the four aces.

Two pairs reached the grand slam here, and they knew what they were doing although they followed different routes.

Tony Mutukisna, playing with Nigel Freake, decided to open 1H in case he lost the hearts if he opened 1C. This worked well and the auction, uncontested, was 1H-1S-2C-2D*-3C-4NT(RKCB)-5D-7C. 2D was fourth-suit, game forcing. East knows that West has at least 5-5 in the round suits and went "all in" on being able to find the queen of clubs if necessary. 

Matthew Hendrickson and Ed Sanders bid 1C-1D-1H-2S(FSF)-3H-4NT-5S (2 with, for hearts)-7C. This time East knows that West is 5-6 as he opened 1C, so 7C will only require clubs to break 2-1, a 78% chance. A slightly better auction but no style marks and a joint top.

It is churlish to question whether the top spot of 7NT might have been reached. A possible auction, if uncontested, is 1C-1D-1H-1S(4SF)-2H-(5-6)-4C(minorwood)

-4H(1)-6S.  This says we can make 7C, but what do you think about 7NT? West with a source of tricks in hearts can bid 7NT. But all pie-in-the-sky.

This phrase appeared first in 1911 in Hill’s The Preacher and the Slave, which
parodied the Salvation Army hymn In the Sweet Bye and Bye:

From the day of your birth it’s bread and water here on earth
To a child of life to a child of life 

But there’ll be pie in the sky by and by when I die and it’ll be alright it’ll be alright 

There’ll be pie in the sky by and by when I die and it’ll be alright it’ll be alright

Short and Sweet by Foxymoron

The first known use of the expression 'short and sweet' was in Richard Taverner's Proverbs and Adages in 1539 and it appeared in Shakespeare's As You Like It.  When we play in the fourth Tuesday competition at the Woodberry, we should try to avoid long auctions, as the partnerships are irregular. "Better short and sweet than long and lax", wrote James Kelly in Scottish Proverbs.

Maybe I took this advice a bit too far this week when I selected the final contract at my first turn to call, but I landed on my feet:

My partner, the retired maths teacher Roly Harris, opened 1D and West overcalled 3H. I teased the gathering in the pub that I had now bid 5H, exclusion Blackwood, on the North hand, and they believed me. I would not risk that on a fourth Tuesday, however, and I made a practical choice of Six Spades. Partner rates to have at least one spade, and you will probably lose a spade. If there is a diamond loser then 7D won't make either. My partner passed, as you might expect, and I was pleased to see that nobody bid the Grand Slam in diamonds.

5H was probably the right bid. It asks partner to show how many key cards he has outside hearts. And one can play 3041 or 4130 over this by agreement. Of course, if you have agreed which with an irregular partner on a fourth Tuesday you will be told to "get a life".  And if East bids 6H or doubles, then you need to have an agreement. DOPI and ROPI are standard, so that double shows no key cards, pass shows 1, and South would bid 6NT over 6H on his actual hand, showing two plus the queen of trumps, giving North an easy 7D. 

I was quite happy with my 19/20 for selecting the final contract of 6S, and the opponents were gnashing and wailing when the trumps were 3-3.

Oh, and my cat Ebony informs me that "landed on one's feet" refers to the ability of cats to do so when jumping from a height.

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.