Carelessness by Foxymoron

More matches are lost through carelessness at the beginning than any other cause - Harry Vardon, six times Open Golf Champion (1896, 1898, 1899, 1903, 1911, 1914).

In bridge, carelessness at trick one can be very expensive, and not stopping to consider the whole hand is often the reason for the error. Today, Elsa Nelson, West, was careless at trick one, but her Guardian Angel was watching over her shoulder:

I don't think Elsa is worth a free bid of 2S on the West hand. East's Benji 2C was forcing, and she can safely pass to find out which is partner's suit. Still, there is no arguing with success and 6S was about a 50% contract, depending solely on the club finesse. The finesse is wrong, as you can see, but look what happened. North led a heart as her partner had overcalled in hearts and Elsa ruffed, but with the two of spades! Now there was no entry to the West hand and she was forced to drop the king of clubs offside after drawing trumps.

The Rabbi would also make Six Spades of course following his rule which, as Harvey explains, is that you have to drop the king of clubs when it is singleton offside. Elsa's Rule, created today, is that you have to drop the king of clubs offside when there is no longer an entry for the finesse!

Baron by Foxymoron

 There are several bids in bridge which are often prefaced by the word Baron, in particular the Baron 2S, the Baron 2NT and the Baron 3C, occurring in different auctions. They all originate from the same bidding system, developed in the 1940s by Adam "Plum" Meredith and Leo Baron, the subject of a book I have ordered recently from Amazon. Meredith was a member of the 1955 World Championship winning team, but less is known of Baron.

Leo Solomon Baron (13 October 1916 – 22 October 1985) was a British lawyer, Royal Air Force officer and contract bridge player who practised law in Southern Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe) during the 1950s and 1960s, sat on the Supreme Court of Zambia during the 1970s, and briefly served as Acting Chief Justice of Zimbabwe in 1983.

The principle of the Baron convention is that it generally shows a strong hand, and opener is invited to bid 4 card suits in ascending order. It would have been very useful on a hand today:

We did not explore the hand fully, but avoided the bad 6NT, which does not make. At our table, my partner opened a Precision 1D, and rebid 1NT to show 11-13. My choice was 3NT or 4NT, invitational, and I went tor the former. 

I think South should open a 14-16 NT, and then I could have used a version of the Baron convention on the North hand. The way this is used with my Welsh International partner is that I transfer to hearts on the North hand and then bid 2S, cancelling the transfer and promising 18+ points. Now South will bid a five-card suit if he has one, else he bids 2NT. Then I bid 3D as North, showing 4. Now South can agree diamonds with 4D and North might just bid 6D. He knows the partnership has 33 points or thereabouts and a 4-4 diamond fit. That makes easily enough here, as declarer can cash two top diamonds and three spades, and two ace kings. Now he cross-ruffs the last four tricks and the defence just make a trump.

Splinters by Foxymoron

“I had a splinter once," Shallan noted. "It eventually got out of hand".- Brandon Sanderson from the fantasy novel Oathbringer. 

Lt. Col. Beasley played for England in the very first official Bridge World Championship in 1933. In one game against the American team, Beasley made (in the middle of the auction) a bid much like a modern Splinter, a double jump showing a shortage, and this enabled Beasley to arrive at a good Slam contract with only 22 HCP in the combined hands. The American "Bridge Hall of Fame" player Dorothy Truscott is generally credited with having developed the idea of Splinter bids, but only much later in 1964.

On the following hand, Andy Conway used a splinter bid.

Many would play that 3H here was a splinter bid, as 2H would have been forcing, in which case 4H can show a void. Of course one needs to agree this in advance. The simple agreement that a double jump is a splinter works quite well. Although the king of hearts was likely to be wasted, having six spades when partner promises four is a good thing. It is vital that a splinter always promises four trumps, as that increases the value of a singleton or void considerably. 

The king of hearts is not completely wasted although here it is not needed. The defence makes the ace of hearts, but only if South cashes it on the go. Rachel, South did that, as did I as South on a different auction, but that was only one match point and a joint bottom. This should be a fairly easy slam to bid. The other bid West could consider is 4D, showing  good diamonds and four spades, and that should get to the easy slam as well.

Restricted View by Foxymoron

 I always avoid any seats at the theatre, opera, or sports stadiums that have a restricted view. As the number of attendees that will be allowed when lockdown eases will be restricted, I expect that those seats will be taken out of circulation for a while. In bridge, restricted choice refers to the principle that one is less likely to have the other of two touching honours because one might have played it.

Wikipedia sums it up well: In contract bridge, the principle of restricted choice states that play of a particular card decreases the probability its player holds any equivalent card.

There were several conflicting pieces of evidence on the following hand last night, but I think I gave the wrong amount of weight to restricted choice and took the wrong view:

My marginal 1D overcall was perhaps ill-conceived and I soon reached a thin 3NT. In almost all other rooms, West had opened a weak NT and gone for a penalty, usually undoubled, but here EW were playing a strong NT. All NS, except Muggins, went plus.

East led the three of clubs to West's king and the two of clubs was returned. My thinking at the time was that the two relevant holdings are AKxx with West and KJxx with West. With the former, West has free choice which honour to play. With the latter she does not have.

West can easily have an opening bid without the ace of clubs. For example, Qxx Qxxx Ax KJxx or even Txx QJTx Ax KJxx, but I think it is a bit more likely that West has the ace of clubs than not on the bidding. However, it did occur to me that something like QTx Qxxx Ax AKxx would be a strong no-trump, so West does not have that. Also West did not double 3C, so I thought it less likely that she had AKxx in clubs.

The other factor I considered was that West might return the jack from KJxx to pin the ten, in case her partner has A9xx. Of course that saves North a guess when he has the nine of clubs, so it is very much a two-edged sword.

In the end I decided to just play restricted choice, and played low, but that was one off and zero match points instead of the 90% for making, losing out to a couple of 500 penalties only. And egg on my face.

As Lord Chalfont reflected in 'The Times' of London in 1972: 'There is something reassuringly changeless about the capacity of the highest [military] authorities for getting egg on their face."

Poetry in Motion by Foxymoron

 A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist - Vladimir Nabokov

The above is one of my favourite quotes, and I was reminded of it when admiring a precision auction by Michael Klein and Web Ewell on Sunday. It was poetry in motion, and this phrase I first remember from the Johnny Tillotson number 1 hit single of 1961, but it goes back a lot earlier than that.

In 1813, in Lady Morgan Wild Irish Girl, "I seldom dance,'" said I. "Ill health has for some time coincided with my inclination, which seldom led me to try my skill at the Poetry of Motion."

Precision auctions often cause opponents to run out of pass cards in real life. On the Internet they make it hard to display the full auction as here. South opened a strong club, 16+ and North bid 1D which was any 0-7. Now South bid 1H, his singleton (!) but that was 20+, any shape. North's 1NT was a game-force with spades, and 2C asked about shape, North's 3S showed precisely 7-2-2-2, the precision of a poet. South's 4C asked for controls and North's 4D showed 0-2. GIven that North has 0-7 points, he is likely to have 0-2 controls, so I wonder if an improvement can be made here, so that, say, 4D is 0-1 and 4H is 2.  4H asked again, and North's 4NT showed one ace or one king. South could almost write down the North hand, and leapt to the good 6S. They were the only pair to bid this, unsurprisingly.

On the heart lead the play was not trivial. Declarer won, cashed two rounds of spades and played three rounds of clubs discarding his losing heart while West ruffed with his queen of spades. As long as the person with three spades had two clubs, he was home. An alternative line was to play one round of trumps and then play on clubs, but that would fail if the second round of clubs was ruffed with a small trump, and I don't think it ever gains, so the line chosen by Web was best.

Giving a Hand by Foxymoron

"Can I give you a hand?" I asked when Stefanie was cooking in the kitchen. "Sure, you can peel some potatoes", she replied. "I didn't mean that," I continued undeterred, "You are playing matchpoints and you hold, with both sides vulnerable:

♣AT7 ♥K97 ♦542 ♠A762. Partner opens 1NT, 12-14 and the next player passes, Do you invite game?"

"I would pass opposite you", she replied unkindly. I did pass, opposite her, so I suppose I deserved that. The hand evaluates at 11.35 on the K-R scale so is a marginal invite. One can get close to this as well by adding half for each ace, deducting a quarter for each queen and jack, deducting a half for 4-3-3-3, leaving 4-4-3-2 as it is and adding a half for 5-3-3-2. Tens are interesting,. Add a quarter for each ten over 1 and deduct a quarter if you don't have one. So this hand is around 11.5 

I plugged in partner's hand as well and that came out at 13.2. So game is no bargain.

I guess I should invite, however, as defence is harder than offence. On a diamond lead, declarer should play the hearts from the top, making three tricks in that suit when they are 3-3 or a doubleton honour appears, but most lines work. With the club finesse right, that is two spades, three hearts, one diamond and three clubs. Some did not manage those, so we got only a little below average. And game is only around 50% on a double dummy simulation, which tends to bias in favour of the declarer.

Matchpoints is a difficult game and in top events it might be right to pass with a 11-count as going one off in 2NT or game is always a bad score. But in the average club duplicate, perhaps one should try to do what you think the field will do. Some play in response to 1NT that 2S is 11 points or to play in 3 of a minor, the so-called McKendrick Convention. That would have worked well here.

At Sixes and Sevens by Foxymoron

The above phrase was originally 'to set on six and seven' and is thought to have derived in the 14th century from the game of dice. The meaning then was 'to carelessly risk one's entire fortune'. The earliest citation in print is Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, 1374:

"Lat nat this wrechched wo thyn herte gnawe, But manly set the world on sexe and seuene."

I am sure some Chaucerian thoughts were going through the minds of those in six of a major on this hand today. Should one try for seven, in the bidding and play, or should one settle for six? Stefanie and Andy were very unlucky:

Derek and Maria Essen reached the good contract of 6NT. If East finds the club lead, then you will either have to risk the contract on the diamond finesse or settle for making six. The diamond finesse was off and the king of diamonds ruffed out in two rounds but 6NT was still a top. Those in six of a major just took the diamond finesse (or did not risk it when East-West found the club lead). 1430 was a little above average, but 1440 was, surprisingly, all the match points.

Seven hearts is quite a bit against the odds, as the percentage line is the diamond finesse, and you may need spades 3-2 to boot. In Six Hearts, you can play to ruff out the king of diamonds in three rounds which you will try if getting a club lead. In a funny way, 6NT is likely to score very well. It will make whenever spades are 3-2 and has some chances of an overtrick when West has the king of diamonds and the king and queen of clubs as West gets squeezed. Especially played by North, which Maria and Derek managed.

6NT is usually the right contract when the alternative is 6 of a minor, as it beats the latter with an overtrick. The same argument does not apply to 6 of a major, and the decision is very close.