Computers are Useless

 

Computers Are Useless. They Can Only Give You Answers by Foxymoron

The heading above is apparently attributed to Pablo Picasso, in the Paris Review of 1964. I don't have the publication to check it out, but the quote has stuck.  A computer analysis of the North-South hands would have been useful today in deciding whether or not to bid game. South opened a weak Two Spades, second in hand, favourable and North enquired with 2NT. We play Ogust here, and South's 3D showed a good suit, but the lower end of the point range, so 5-7, with the higher end being 7-9. I chose the former as unsupported jacks are particularly poor, not worth one point. North signed off, and one can plug the NS hands into a computer (afterwards of course) and it assesses the chances of game as being about 68%. So you want to be there. And the other game which is possible is 3NT but this is somewhat worse, needing diamonds 4-4 and spades 3-2, around 23% only. In practice it might do better as they rarely lead a diamond from Hxx especially when partner did not double 3D.

Still, having missed a good game, I compounded this by making the minimum number of tricks and was quite pleased to get 20% on the board. West led two top diamonds, East showing an even number, and exited, slightly oddly, with a trump. I wondered why West did not play a club.

I drew trumps in three rounds, finding that West had three of those, and was at a crossroads. Two lines suggest themselves. One is to play three rounds of hearts from the top, and if the long heart is not good or the queen of hearts does not drop, take the club finesse.  This is about 52% for the hearts coming in, and about another 24% for the club finesse. About 76%. The other is to play the ace of hearts and a small heart towards South, and if it loses to the queen, rise on the club return and you make ten if either hearts are 3-3 or East has the queen of hearts, or West has four hearts and the king of clubs (as she will be squeezed). This seems to be about 68% for the hearts producing three tricks, and around 15% extra for the heart-club squeeze, so over 80%. I went for this line without any real confidence, and ended with a poor score when I lost to Qx of hearts. A complicating factor is that playing the ace, king and another heart might make 11 tricks on a good day.

One final line is to play to the ace of hearts and duck a heart if East does not play the queen on the way back. However, your entries are tangled if West wins the heart with the doubleton queen and plays a club, so this line does not look right, even if East will rarely duck with the queen of hearts.

Six pairs bid and made 4S. Three were assisted by a heart discard from East on the third round of trumps, and they had little difficulty setting up their tenth trick. And one had a club switch at trick two, and finessed after which they had little choice but to drop the doubleton queen of hearts. Another drew trumps and led the ace and king of hearts and that worked well. Perhaps I should have reflected on the curious incident of the dog that did not bark in the night. Maybe they did not switch to a club as they knew that I would  have been forced to finesse, and then drop the doubleton queen of hearts! 

Grand Inquisitor by Foxymoron

Aficionados of Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov will be familiar with the title of this blog. The interpretation of the poem of the same name is extraordinarily varied and complex, as would the correct auction be on the hand which occurred at the Woodberry tonight. I think it has to be some sort of asking sequence, as there is so much to find out. Given that the NS winners, David Burn and Dr Frances Loughridge, did not explore the hand fully, I feel sure that discussing your methods here would be beneficial. Without further ado:

Even playing 4-card majors and a strong NT there should be no real problem. After 1H-1S-2NT (showing typically 18-19), South should bid 3D, natural and forcing. I mentioned a while back that 3C could be played after 1X-1Y-2NT as a Wolff sign-off, showing a bad hand, but even without that 3D has to be played as forcing. North might seize control here with such good diamond support. It would be nice to play that 4D is minorwood, but even without that, North will cue 4C. Now South will cue 4H and North can cue 4S. The only worry now for South is that North has something like Kx Axxx Axxx AKTx and just bidding keycard Blackwood will suffice. South finds that all the key cards are present and can bid the grand with confidence.

Not one pair bid the grand in diamonds. And the grand in no-trumps is also excellent, needing one of the following:

a) spades 3-3

b) hearts 3-3

c) the same person guarding hearts and spades

d) a few other squeezes with the same person being in sole guard of clubs and a major (corrected-Ed)

I think the practical choice is to play 6NT, which has 12 cashers, and will beat 6D+1 always. Of course if the field is bidding 7D, you need to bid 7NT!

Asking for Trouble by Foxymoron

My card with Paul Huggins is a fairly simple 2/1 with Three Weak Twos, and, like many an irregular partnership, and no doubt some regular partnerships, we have 2NT = ASK shown over weak twos. We also went to the trouble to say that 3M was minimum, and others were natural. But “ASK” can be interpreted in more ways than one. Does it ask for a feature, or ask primarily whether you have the usual trash multi or something worth showing? I remember a quiz asking for ten song titles with ASK in the title, and with Brian McGuire present we soon spat out this list. I will leave you to add the group.

Ask Me Why

Don’t Ask Me Why

Please Don’t Ask

Ask Yourself Why

Don’t Ask Me Why (again)

If You Have to Ask

Ask Any Girl

All I Ask of You

Ask Me No Questions

Ask Me How I Feel

We scored much better in the quiz than on the above hand where my partner thought that I had the AK of hearts and king of diamonds. He thought that I had the former as he asked about them, and he thought that I had the latter as he asked for a feature and I bid diamonds. But a feature and natural are not the same, and he could have used 5NT, please cue kings. I would have said I did not have any kings, and we would have rested in 6H. But at the end of the day, 7NT was on a finesse and, in these days of self-kibitzing, I was kind of glad that it was offside. And arseblog, South, was very happy with the top, as he had only just got over celebrating Arsenal’s win in the F A Cup final.

The moral of the tale is to make sure that the question you are asking is getting the answer you want!

Slim Slam by Foxymoron

22 yards in cricket is often more than you think, especially if you are trying to run a quick single. 22 points in bridge is more than the minimum to make a slam, but not usually enough. On the above hand the two major suit fits provide 12 tricks but only if both of them behave. Spades are about 50% to come in and hearts are about 68%, so the overall chances are not great, about 35%. Ryan Stephenson and Ken
Barnett reached slam in hearts, the auction beginning 1S-(2NT)-3D* showing a game force with hearts. West's 2NT was particularly unusual! South raised 3H to 4H and North bid RKCB despite the void. Ed Sanders led the ace of clubs and continued clubs and Ryan ruffed, cashed the heart queen, ruffed a diamond and drew trumps. One of the problems with Bridgebase is that it times you out after 8 minutes. This is normally enough, but here it was not, and the software awarded an average, leaving the TD to decide if that was fair. In the seven-card ending, having drawn trumps, declarer should lead the eight of spades, to avoid the suit being blocked. This caters for a singleton queen of spades or spades 2-2 and  brings home the slam. The TD decided that this line would be chosen by a competent declarer, and awarded the slam.

Ruff and Sluff
by Foxymoron

My neighbour's dog has coronavirus. He was very wheezy today, and I asked him how he was feeling and he said "Ruff!" Time to change the subject, methinks. Slough is an interesting word. Apart from being one of the few words that can change its pronunciation when it has a capital letter, it also has different meanings without a capital letter, and different pronunciations. Slough, pronounced sluff, is the term for shedding skin, as snakes do, To complicate matters, slough meaning wet swampy ground, can be pronounced slow (rhyming with cow) or sloo (rhyming with loo). I am getting a bit bogged down in more ways than one, so back to the bridge.

We were all taught as beginners not to concede a ruff and discard, a ruff and sluff, which uses the meaning of slough "to cast off", but the winning defence on a hand from the EBU SIMs pairs today was to do so twice!

It generally pays to go to the three-level at match points and I was quite happy to compete to 3H here. I must admit I would have gone on to three spades as either West or East, but they gave in. West cashed the top two spades, East showing an odd number, and made the normal switch to the jack of clubs. I put in the queen, more in hope than expectation, and East won.

Now the winning defence is to concede a ruff and discard by playing a third spade. Say South ruffs and leads the king of hearts. Now, as Stefanie pointed out at the time (and Sally did in the booklet to be fair), West can win and concede a second ruff and discard by playing a fourth spade. East will uppercut with the nine of hearts and declarer is beaten. Finding this defence would be worth around 70% of the matchpoints and would be well-deserved. If you are greedy and want 100% then you have to double first and then find it!

This leads me on to slough, pronounced sluff. In addition to shedding skin, some snakes also squeeze their prey, and such an opportunity presented itself on the following hand. But the timing must be right. The python moves incredibly fast in crushing a rodent before the latter can get its teeth into the python's neck.

North opened 2NT in our room. We play this as 23-24, so that when we open 2C it is either 20-22 or 25+. This seems to work quite well and we have had a few successes playing in 3 of a minor after the former. I decided to bid 3C, 5-card stayman, and then 3NT on the South hand. I could have shown four spades, but with around 30.5 points, computer simulations suggest that no-trumps usually makes the same number of tricks. On this occasion it did not matter and East led a spade to the ten and ace. Stefanie  played a club to the queen which held, although that was no guarantee of the ace being onside. She now sensibly cashed three rounds of hearts to see where she stood in that suit and they broke. Now, fatally, she cashed the fourth heart which squeezed dummy in an unusual way, and she only made 11 tricks, still worth about 70% strangely. The line for 12 tricks was to lead the ten of clubs now. Say East wins and exits with a club. Now you win the king of clubs, cash one top diamond, and the ace of spades say, and only now play the last heart in the four-card ending. East must pitch a diamond and now you pitch a spade from dummy, and cross to the queen of spades, squeezing West in clubs and diamonds. A non-simultaneous double squeeze. Of course, if you are self-kibitzing, you would bid and make 6NT, to make sure of your top.

Double Trouble
By Foxymoron

One of the best articles explaining what to do when the opponents pre-empt is the following by the excellent bridge writer and teacher, Larry Cohen:

Doubles
When your opponents preempt, there is a place on the convention card to mark whether double is "Takeout" or "Penalty."  (There used to be a box called "Optional" -- I lobbied hard to get that ridiculous choice removed - what the heck is "optional?" -- anyway, it is now gone).

If you mark "Penalty," maybe your last name is Fishbein. Harry Fishbein invented a convention whereby a double of a preempt is for penalty (and the next suit is for takeout). What do I think of this unpopular convention? Let's just say that even Fishbein didn't play FISHBEIN!

When the opponents preempt, a double is for takeout. Period. Whether in direct seat or balancing seat, nobody plays double for penalty.

On what level? Surely on the 2- and 3-level everyone plays double for takeout. What about the 4-level?

4-Level Doubles
A double should still be takeout. Some teachers espouse that doubles of 4H  are takeout but doubles of 4S  are penalty. What do I think of that one?

What would you do if RHO opened 4S and you held:  ª3 ©AK54 ¨AQ74 §K842? You would double, of course. But, to call this a "Penalty" double makes no sense. You would be delighted to hear partner remove to 5H with, say:  ª862 ©QJT872 ¨KJ2 §3.  You would make 5H  instead of collecting (at best) a measly penalty. If your double of 4S  is "Penalty," partner won't remove it. So, it is silly to define doubles of any pre-empt as penalty. (What are the odds that you will get dealt a trump stack when your opponent also has a very long, usually good suit? Infinitesimal!) If you ever do get dealt a penalty double, you have to calmly pass, hopefully in tempo, and pray that your partner doubles for takeout. You will then be able to convert (by passing) for penalties. If they buy it undoubled, so be it--you can't cater to everything. In case you are wondering, a bid of 4NT would show a 2-suited takeout (at least 5-5).

The following hand from the Woodberry Pairs this week had the Cohenites taking out the double and getting 88% while the Fishbeinites were left with less than 10%:

There is not a lot to the play. If North can find the diamond switch he can beat 5C two, but this will always be a good result for EW as 4S was making, and -590 was not a good result as three pairs found to their cost.

The moral is to take out your partner’s take-out doubles, but first of all partner should double when he does not mind if you take it out or leave it in.

Duck Soup
by Foxymoron

I think for about the third time in a row, I went off here in a game I could make; and again I did not give the hand my best shot.  The auction was fairly typical but plenty of Wests led a diamond, which led to an overtrick when declarer set up the clubs, mundanely. Now declarer has a double spade stop and can not be beaten. I faced a low spade lead, and needed in theory to duck the first trick to succeed. Now I can win the second spade, concede a diamond, win the third spade, and run four rounds of hearts, triple squeezing West. He can come down to ♠JT ♦J8 ♣KQ. Now I can duck a club, and the defence only has four tricks.

The defence is pretty hard if I win the first spade and lead a diamond immediately. West has to duck. Now best is to cash four rounds of hearts, but West discards the jack and ten of spades, and keeps three clubs. Now his partner can be reached in spades with the 98 and has two hearts to cash. Of course none of this happened when I was at the helm, as I just played for a favourable club position, but I think I need ♣KQx ♣KQ, ♣KT or ♣QT onside,  or ♣KQ offside if I read it. With the hearts 0-6, I guess the first two of these are unlikely.

I must admit I would lead a diamond on the above hand, as did many Wests, and that gets only 15% of the match-points. At least when I did not find the club layout I needed, I managed to salvage 30% by playing the strip squeeze on West for one off.