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!

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose by Foxymoron

 The origin of this expression is interesting. The first appearance seems to be in 1802:

"The South" and "The North" are not bridge terms, as one might tell from the reference to the House of Representatives. The expression means that you cannot lose regardless and such was the case here:

East opened 1S, fairly marginal, but as a friend from the WLGBC is fond of saying, "I rate a stiff queen very highly!". West responded 3NT which this pair play as a balanced 3-card raise, quite sensible methods, and East has a normal removal to 4S. With a horrible lead to choose from Paul Thornton, who takes his sobriquet from the North Yorkshire village of Bentham, rather than the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, led the ten of diamonds. Now it costs nothing to run this round to the queen. If, as is very likely, North wins with the king, you can later throw a heart loser on the ace of diamonds, and will still make the contract if the spade finesse is right, or if you can find a doubleton ace of clubs somewhere. When the queen wins, you can still throw a loser on the ace of diamonds, and are now cold.  Some Souths led a club, which is also fraught as Jxxx is very dangerous, but if North puts in the ten, declarer should go down, but about half the field made game here. 

Heads You Win–Tails I Lose is a song written by Brian Wilson and Gary Usher for the American rock band The Beach Boys. It was released on their 1962 album Surfin' Safari. 

After Ken rose with the ace of diamonds, there was no way home: As the lyrics of the song said:

Heads you win, tails I lose
I can't get the upper hand no matter what I do
You'll always be the winner and I'll always be the fool
Heads you win, tails I lose

Extra Chances by Foxymoron

When you need to ruff losers in dummy, it normally pays to do so before you draw trumps, and such was the case on this hand tonight. The NS winners benefited from declarer losing her way on this hand, in 6S, but the right path was not obvious. We settled for the more mundane 4S, and I did not find the right line:

South finds the most testing lead against 4S (or 6S) of a trump, and you win in East. How are you going to set out to make the maximum? It would seem that you can ruff three clubs in dummy and discard one on a diamond if the ace is right, but the timing has to be correct. The winning line is to ruff a club, play the ace of hearts and ruff a heart, ruff a club, ruff a heart and ruff a club. Now a further heart ruff brings you back to East and you can draw the outstanding trump and play a diamond. South ducks, and the king wins, but you now ruff the last heart and play another diamond, and this is a stepping stone to the winning queen of diamonds, having extracted all of South's hearts. If the hearts are 4-3 you are also home, and this line seems better than playing an early diamond, as I did, and hoping the diamonds are 4-3 with the ace onside.

Anything other than ruffing a club at trick two is only 11 tricks, as I found to my cost.

Duck or Grouse by Foxymoron

 

The above picture was taken in a pub with a particularly low beam. It is rumoured that one of the Woodberry members banged his head through not avoiding it, and he cannot remember which pub it was. It has a very good game menu - backgammon, bridge, chess and trivial pursuit maybe.

If you are in doubt whether to duck or not, then generally it pays to duck. Declarer (or a defender) will not be sure of the layout, and may well go wrong. This maxim might have paid dividends on a couple of hands tonight.

Jim O'Donoghue and Iain Macleay breezed into slam against us on the above hands. For better or for worse I had doubled FSF on the South hand, so Chantal led a diamond. My carding here should probably be count but that is often hard to read. When declarer won the ace of diamonds in dummy and crossed to the jack of hearts I had a second chance to signal. What should my heart card mean? The world-class player Krzysztof Martens discusses this in his books and it should be count, but linked to another suit. Here, as West has opened 1H and bid and rebid clubs, he can only have 3 pointed-suit cards. It is crucial for North to know how many spades he has, and South will play hi-low in hearts with an even number of spades, or low-high with an odd number of spades; alternatively the heart carding can be linked to the suit of the same colour, so diamonds in this case. So, here, the seven of hearts might say "I have two spades, don't rise on the first round unless you have six." North can then duck the first spade with confidence and declarer may get it wrong. When North rose at the table, Jim quickly made his contract on a cross-ruff, and did not need the favourable lie in the black suits.

 

It was good to see an old-fashioned auction here. I might have bid 3H on the second round as East, but not giving away information was fine too. As South, I led the queen of clubs, asking for attitude and Chantal encouraged with the North hand. I continued the suit and East won and led the queen of hearts. I instinctively ducked as South as this is a fairly standard situation if partner has Txx or Txxx, and declarer has to be given a guess. East flattered me by continuing with a small heart, playing me to have ducked with Kx, and the ten tricks were worth 60% to East-West. At least I tried. [Don't try this at home as they say, or you will find that declarer has QJ63 opposite A72 and now notices that he cannot pin the doubleton T98 and continues with a small one, making three tricks in the suit]

What were your experiences on these boards? It is your blog, and we could do with some more contributions. Email Andy Conway if you need permission to post.

 

 

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!