Look Before You Leap by Foxymoron

“Look before you leap”

 is first known to appear

 in this 14th century manuscript

 (Ms. Douce) now housed

 in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

This very old proverb or adage (it is not an idiom) stems from Aesop's Fables (around 620) where the fox could not climb out of the well, so persuades the goat to jump in. It's modern meaning is that you should consider the consequences before acting. Keen students of Middle English will be able to read the above!

Nowhere is this more relevant than at trick one in bridge, even if one seems to have the most natural action in the world. As in the following hand from last night's British Summer Sims Pairs.

The auction was a good one, and only four of the eleven NS pairs reached slam, and making it scores 70% in any case. But the overtrick is not to be sneezed at, especially online in these Covid times. East led the queen of clubs and Ken Barnett won, far too quickly, with the ace in dummy. If the hearts are 2-2 you have six hearts, two spades, one diamond, two clubs and a club ruff, totalling 12 tricks, but the "baker's dozen" will be a useful bonus. 

The best line is to win the lead with the king of clubs, cash the ace of spades, play two rounds of trumps ending in dummy, play the king of spades and ruff a spade if the queen does not appear, cross to the ace of clubs and ruff another spade. Now you can ruff a club and enjoy the thirteenth spade. As long as spades are 4-3 and trumps 2-2 you will make an overtrick. 

Chantal was also in 6H by North and made the same mistake as Ken, but the opponents misdefended and she made an overtrick when both defenders threw away too many diamonds. Making the overtrick elevated her score to 90%. One can still make 12 tricks of course after winning with the ace of clubs, but one does not have enough entries if the queen of spades does not not come down in three rounds. If you swap the queen and nine of spades, you can only make an overtrick on a club lead if you keep the ace as clubs as an entry.

As one of my Welsh friends points out, playing low from dummy is the best way to make the contract as well. If hearts are 3-1, you will then still have enough entries to establish the long spade while the defenders ruff with their trump trick.

It is, however, great to report a Woodberry winner of the SIMs last night; Phil Mattacks and Ken Rolph came first nationally with a fine score of 71.04%

Take a Break by Foxymoron

 The word "break" has so many meanings, not as many as "pass" and "set", which are the two words with the most meanings in the standard dictionary, with the latter winning by a landslide. Even in games and sports its meanings differ, with a break in snooker being a long run of pots, while a break in darts is to win the leg when the opponent throws first. Take a Break is a very successful magazine which combines rather mindless puzzles and word searches with "soap and star stories".

Even in bridge, break has more than one meaning. A bad break would usually be a 4-0 or 5-1 trump break. To break a contract is to defeat it. But also a break is the "non-completion" of a transfer as happened on the hand below. Fred Pitel judged very well to bid slam when his partner broke the transfer:

2NT was 20-22, 3D was a transfer to hearts, and 4H showed 4 or more hearts and a good hand. I am surprised that other tables who had the same start did not bid slam now, and I think 4NT, Roman Keycard Blackwood, is best although it could lead to a slam off the ace and king of spades. After North showed 1 or 4, South bid 5H which said "if you have only 1 pard, we are too high!" North had an easy 6H, although I might have even bid 5S here to show the king of spades in case South has extras.

The play was interesting. Declarer drew trumps, cashed the top spades and ruffed a spade and played ace and another diamond. When the queen lost to the king, he now took the club finesse. So, the slam was 75% requiring one of two outcomes (with a small extra chance of a singleton king of diamonds or Kx with East). The chance of AT LEAST one of two coin tosses being a head is also 75%, which some people get wrong. That reminds me of another poser. A friend covertly tosses two coins and tells you that one of the two results was a head. What is the chance that the other coin is a tail? I will leave that with you.

Right on Cue by Foxymoron

This phrase, roughly meaning just at the right time, seems to stem from the theatre, and the etymology is 16th Century; probably from the name of the letter q, used in an actor's script to represent the Latin quando (when). A cue was a signal for an actor to enter the stage.

Both Chantal and Stefanie produced identical auctions today to balance with a natural 2S bid. They were partnering good players, and had no hesitation in trusting their partner with a cue bid of the opponent's suit. The word "cue" is interesting, and is a form of "queue" as a way of representing the letter. I sometimes throw in at the end of a party the poser as to which Welsh word is pronounced the same way as its English equivalent, but has no letters in common. That is CIW, the Welsh for QUEUE, seen on road signs in Wales. The poser normally triggers other guests to look at their watches and say, "Is that the time? I must get my coat".

But I digress. This cue today was not a mystery:

Some play an immediate 2S as natural, but on the next round it is unambiguous. 2S is always making 9 tricks for a joint top, and both Wests led a trump, a poor choice, which should cost the second overtrick. Chantal won and ran the jack of hearts which Robot East won to return another heart, but this allowed South to get a club away on the third heart while East ruffed with a trump trick. 2S+2 was worth all the matchpoints. Stefanie was in the same position, and when East ruffed with the nine of spades she overruffed instead of discarding the ten of clubs. Now she should play a diamond and can later gain entry to dummy to take another spade finesse to share a top. When she didn't, she only made one overtrick. So Chantal had the honours on this board, but Stefanie came out on top overall with a fine win with Ken Rolph on 67%.

K for Kount by Foxymoron

Kount is the world's largest company for detecting credit-card fraud, used by many of the top banks and finance houses, but the expression K is for Kount is a bridge term, linked in with A is for attitude. The theory is that if you lead the king of a suit you have bid, partner gives count (yes I know it is spelled with a "c") and if you lead the ace it asks for attitude. That would have avoided the bad result that Harvey and Doug experienced on this hand from last night:

At our table, East-West sacrificed in 5Cx, which had to go one off a bit unluckily, when the defence cashed their three major-suit winners. This was a "phantom sacrifice" as 4H should be beaten.

At this table, West decided to defend 4H but put all his eggs in one basket by leading his singleton spade. This was poorly considered, as his Qx of hearts suggested that declarer would be able to draw trumps easily and so it proved; it would probably only succeed if partner had the ace of spades. A better defence was to lead the king of diamonds, asking for count in that suit. Now East plays the three of diamonds and South the five. Now West knows that East does not have four diamonds, as with JT32, East should play the second card, the ten, but East could easily have three diamonds. West cashes the ace of diamonds and all becomes clear when East follows with the two and West can give East a diamond ruff, for a very good board. If East has four diamonds, there is a lot to be said for him giving false count here, as he can see that South will only have one, and he does not want his partner to attempt to cash the ace of diamonds.

The phrase "putting all his eggs in one basket" was said to be first used in the novel Don Quixote (1612 in English), where it was written “It is the part of a wise man to keep himself today for tomorrow, and not venture all his eggs in one basket.”

Piss-poor by Foxymoron

The Woodberry B team has been promoted in the Lockdown League to Division 4. The octet of Paul Lamford, Stefanie Rohan, Ken Barnett, Chantal Girardin, Gary Diamond, Paul Thornton, Gerry Weston and Paul Huggins gained promotion comfortably in the end. They had a record score of 62-0 in their penultimate match when the opponents' play was described by one kibitzer as "piss-poor". The same phrase was used today about the defence at one table, but this did not stop us from winning by 24 IMPs and cementing our promotion spot

Piss-poor is a very old word and not obscene in any way. They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot and then once a day it was taken and sold to the tanner. if you had to do this to survive you were ‘piss-poor’. But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot they “didn’t have a pot to piss in” and were the lowest of the low.

I must confess to using the expression "piss-poor" when discussing the EW defence on this board:

The normal opening lead here is AC, followed by a heart switch for 800, but Gary led a diamond. Luckily that did not cost and he won the first spade with the ace and cashed the ace and king of clubs. Still no harm done. Now however he cashed another top club, setting up two winners for South. It would still have been two off if he had exited with a minor but he now switched, belatedly, to a heart. Fortunately East's ace was the defence's fifth trick so this was Diamond-proof on Mohs degree of hardness of letting through the contract. Impossible, but still 12 away against the 800 in the other room when Ken decided he was worth a second bite at the cherry at the four level.

Fortunately the opponents had a piss-poor auction to 4H on the following board:

In the other room, North just raised the 2H rebid to 4H but we had a better auction, which began 1H-2D-2H-3C-3H-3S. I would have cued 4C over 3S on the South hand, but I had enough to move on the North hand anyway. 5D showed 0-3 key cards and South obviously bids slam over 5H as he has three. I think a good method is to bid 5NT now to show the queen of trumps and nothing else. If I had AKQxx diamonds I might then bid grand, but there were too many imponderables to do so on the actual auction. Still 6H+1 was 13 in, as the diamonds came in for four tricks on any reasonable line.

So, division 4 here we come, and a meeting with Woodberry A next season.

 

Trash Nothing by Foxymoron

 The expression Trash Nothing, sometimes called Freecycle, has come to the fore during Lockdown. People give away their unwanted items, of little value to them, to deserving recipients. That cat carrier which you have in the loft even though your last cat passed away 15 years ago is a typical example. One can drop off these items at selected venues and they are collected by needy people.

The first thing that Stefanie and Bill agreed today was to play a Trash Multi. This means that the hand has little value and partner knows that you have minus one defensive tricks. He should not ever bother asking for keycards as you rarely have any! If the opponents bid game, they are probably making it, and you should save even at love all.

North's 2D has all the essential ingredients of the trash multi. No defensive trick in sight. Reasonable shape in that 6-4-1-2 is good. One should say that the agreement is 1-7 HCP as one would do it as well with JT9xxx in spades. In third seat it can be varied, but here it should comply. I would have bid something on East's hand, as South might pass out the trash multi with some diamonds, but 5C on the second round looks fine. Bill did well to save in 5S and it was almost impossible for EW to bid their cold slam. NS won this board, but EW came back in others and managed to tie first on 60% in a good contest.

If East does punt 6C he should make it. Even on the best defence of the ace of spades and a heart switch. Declarer can rise with the ace and run all of the trumps. South gets squeezed in the red suits in the three card ending. Phil Mattacks even made an overtrick in 6C as East when South did not cash the ace of spades, as the squeeze generated two extra tricks because of the extended menaces in dummy's red suits.

Breaking Up by Foxymoron

 A famous Abba Song has the lines:

We just have to face it

This time we're through

Breaking up is never easy, I know…

The reader might think that refers to East-West's partnership on the hand below, but nothing could be further from the truth, as Vampyr found a nice endplay for a top on this board:

West decided that she didn't want to double and risk the ox opposite getting his hands on the dummy in Four Spades. And how right she was! 4S is clearly making, losing two clubs and a trump, and it seems that 3NT has only nine tricks. However, the defence was difficult. Jim, North, led the ten of hearts and dummy's jack won. Now declarer lost the spade finesse and the spotlight focused on North. He needed to switch to a club at this point to break up the impending endplay on South, but, as the Swedish group sang, "breaking up is never easy".

North continued hearts and Stefanie won, cashed all her spade, heart and diamond winners, and now threw South in with the fourth round of diamonds to lead into the king of clubs for a deserved tenth trick and a top.