Find the Lady by Foxymoron

The street scam known as Find the Lady or Three-Card Monte is very old, and comfortably pre-dates bridge.

The Game of Monte in the Streets of Mexico by Claudio Linati (1828)

The scam persuades punters to bet on the location of a queen with sleight of hand being used to move it from its original location before it is revealed.

There are three possible locations for the queen in the scam, but in bridge it can only be in one of two positions. Was there anything to guide Ken Barnett this week?

Graham Horscroft opened 1C. Ken Barnett, East overcalled 2S (weak) and South, your scribe, stretched slightly to bid 3C. Liz Clery's 3S ended the auction and the top spot was reached.

South led the four of clubs and North won with the king and switched accurately to the jack of diamonds. After three rounds of diamonds had been cashed, East had to "find the lady".

There is a saying in bridge "eight ever, nine never" which means that with eight trumps you should finesse for the queen, with nine, you should play for the drop. Ken played for the drop and had a very bad score as most made this contract.

The opening lead marks South with a club honour and the play showed that he started with the ace of diamonds. Would he have bid three clubs on xx xxxx Axx Qxxx? Maybe, but on his actual hand he was more likely to do so, and I think the odds favour playing South for the queen of spades. But then I would have slipped that card across the table using sleight of hand, wouldn't I?

North might have made it harder for declarer by winning the first club with the ace and later returning a low club after cashing three diamonds. If South has the king of clubs, he is much less likely to have the "lady".

Rara Avis by Foxymoron

 The heading to this blog was defined by Willie Rushton on Just a Minute as "A sports-car-hire firm", but those with some basic Latin know that it means an event that will almost never occur, such as a Spurs trophy win.

I remember posing at a Camrose evening "Which contract is most rarely doubled?" A bit of thought will give the clear answer "2NT". There is not much point in doubling it - usually game has been declined and the opponents have the majority of points. Also, they may run to three of their best suit, and finally beating it one is usually a fine result. But if it makes ....

Stefanie Rohan and Chantal Girardin scored a top here when West injudiciously doubled the final contract of 2NT and failed to find the winning defence. After 1H-Pass-Pass-Double-Pass-1S-2H-South bid a natural 2NT. West, Phil Mattacks, thought this would not make, expecting more values opposite, and indeed Ken Rolfe's competing with 2H on an 11-loser 0-count left something to be desired. The auction concluded 2NT-Double-All Pass.

West led a top spade, and declarer won the second round and won a diamond trick at some point. However, West then fatally switched to a heart after cashing the third and fourth spade. The defence has to be careful, as ducking even one round of diamonds would have allowed declarer to succeed as West would have been strip-squeezed.

The real culprit was not the mis-defence, however, but the double. Beating 2NT by one would have been 11 matchpoints out of 12, so double stood to gain little. The only other plus score was the pair who defeated NS in 2S by one after a struggle.

The moral is "2NT is not for doubling". Terence Reese would have said, "If you are going to double, partner, you should at least pay attention in defence."

Grand Illusion by Foxymoron

Renoir's 1937 film Grand Illusion contained the notion that somehow middle classes stand above the war. At the recent West of England congress there was a Grand Illusion of a different type. All the good players reached grand and went off. But they had done nothing wrong.

We had a good auction to the top spot. It started 2C-2D-2NT, which we play as showing 25-26 Balanced. We split the range so that with 20-22 we rebid 2H, Kokish, and then bid 2NT over the relay of 2S. And we open 2NT with 23-24 which seems to work well. An extra advantage of this method is that we can bid 2C-2H/2S as non-forcing, to play there opposite 20-22.

Now North transferred to hearts with 3D and South bid 4C, a cue-bid, promising four-card heart support. Then North jumped to 5D, and as this is above game, it is exclusion key-card Blackwood for hearts. North's next bid of 7H was the final contract, but the 3-0 trump break meant that this could not be made. 

One generally needs the grand to be about 67% and this one was around 78%, so it would seem that one wants to be there, but I am not so sure after looking at the traveller. Only six pairs bid grand - flat in 7H-1 in our match - and 6 pairs missed slam with the other 23 only in small slam. If that is representative one would need about an 80% chance to bid grand.

It was good to see so many Woodberry members at the West of England event, very well organised by Tony Russ, Colin Simcox and Frank Coltman. A highly recommended event with Weston-Super-Mare in a time-warp with its shabby-chic hotels, with Grand being a bit of a misnomer.

The winning team: 

Paul Lamford, Stefanie Rohan, Tim Rees, John Salisbury

31 by Foxymoron

 There are so many card games called 31 that they are too numerous to mention. One of the first appeared in a sermon by St Bernardino in 1440 and other more recent games have acquired the simple name 31.

St Bernardino

The goal of assembling a hand totalling 31 is a common feature of games such as Cribbage, Commerce and Trentuno, but getting a hand at bridge with 31 points is a much rarer occurrence, but it occurred on Tuesday.

Several Souths blasted 6NT here, and it is a reasonable contract, requiring clubs 3-3 or the spade finesse. A top was earned by Nigel Freake, who played the heart-spade squeeze on West and made all thirteen tricks. At my table I had a 2S overcall after my "strong" 2C and contented myself with 3NT, being unsure what 4NT would mean. My West stated that he was "squeezed" in the two-card ending, so I did not have to read it. Mike Bull was in 7D by North which is too pushy, but he should have reached the same two-card ending. He had the seven of hearts lead and should get down to the ending with the nine of hearts in North and AQ of spades in South. West cannot see the nine of hearts, and he might well play partner for it and discard his high hearts. If he does bare the king of spades smoothly then you pay off to that and take the spade finesse.

There has been some discussion at the club of the requirements for an opening strong 2C. If you agree to play this as strong, then your agreement must be:

5 D Rules for “Strong” opening bid 

5 D 1 To be considered a “Strong” opening bid, the minimum allowed by agreement is: 

(a) Opening bid of 1C or 1D: at least 13 HCP 

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

This is much better than the previous rule which permitted you to open 2C with two aces and a king, by agreement. Note that the key phrase here is "by agreement". You are ALWAYS allowed to vary from your agreed system.

Law 40A3 A player may make any call or play without prior announcement provided that such call or play is not based on an undisclosed partnership understanding. An old gambit used to be opening 2C on xx xx QJTxxxx xx and passing the 2D response. 

Nearly Six by Foxymoron

 When I see the card combination AJT in bridge, I count it as six points, and I am always reminded of the David Walliams sketch "Computer says No". If you haven't seen it, you can view it here.

.: - Little Britain - Computer says no - :. - YouTube

The combination counts as 5.9 on the K-R evaluator, nearly six as Danielle Lloyd says, and I had no problem in opening 1NT on the North hand below, a good 12 count.

EW had no good way into the auction, unless they are playing "Tyriog", the Welsh translation of Landy. This is something of a misnomer, in that landy is also an old French word for a person of great power. The way this works is that 2C shows 4 or 6 hearts and 2D shows 4 or 6 spades. If you only have four of the anchor suit then you have a longer suit elsewhere. This will allow East-West to compete to 3D, the top spot.

What about the opening lead against 1NT on the East hand? A simulation shows that a diamond is much better than a heart and indeed holds declarer to seven tricks, for close to an average, as 2S can be made, but only by North. Should South transfer to spades? I think so, but it is very close with a poor suit and no aces. Much depends on partner's red-suit holdings, and you won't want to play 2S opposite a low doubleton, as you are very likely to lose four trump tricks. 

The strange score was Passed Out, presumably East miscounting his or her points, and the best score for NS was 3S making by South with the defence not switching to hearts at any time.

Restricted Reasoning

The principle of restricted choice states that when a defender plays one of two touching honours, the chance of him having the other honour is half that of his partner having it. For example. If you have a nine-card fit with AKTxx opposite xxxx and you cash the ace dropping the queen (or jack) on your left, then you should finesse on the second round.

This concept is confusing to the average person, but not half as confusing as the following restriction would have seemed to Welsh speakers.

The restricted choice element of the English version is clear, but the Welsh equivalent was "lost in translation" as they say, and as Google translate will clarify.

Let us see an application of this principle in a more complex setting, in a hand from last night's EBU SIMs.

At our table, West led the ace of diamonds, and declarer ruffed, drew trumps in two rounds and finessed the spade. Now there was an inescapable spade loser. If declarer cashed the ace of spades first, before drawing trumps and leading a second spade, she should find the winning line. West played the ten of spades on the first round, so that East is two to one on to have the jack of spades. 

Suit play gives the best line as running the nine, but that is in a vacuum, without an opening 1NT for West. 

The right line is therefore to duck the second round, and here that brings home the bacon, an old phrase, which originates from the 11th century.

Geoffrey Chaucer mentions the phrase in The Wife of Bath's Tale and Prologue, circa 1395:

But never for us the flitch of bacon though,

That some may win in Essex at Dunmow.

Vacant Thoughts by Foxymoron

I was reminded of the first line of the lyrics of a song by the up and coming Durham group The Thieves by a hand last night:

Vacant thoughts flow through my mind

Empty words are all I can find

No doubt the reader is thinking of the present writer from the second line above, but it is the first line that I want to focus on. In bridge there is a theory that the chance of a player having a particular card is proportional to the number of vacant spaces he has in his hand. "Que?" I hear you say, Manuel-style. Well let us look at the following hand.

We had a less ambitious auction than Paul Saunders and Keith Bush, who were the fine winners of the overall competition this week. The club managed the difficult technical task of merging the online and live boards, roughly equivalent it would seem to the recent separation of two Siamese twins who shared a brain. 

Paul Saunders is a bit of a gambler and South's injudicious double told him how to play the spades and 12 tricks were the result for a top.

At our table, we bid 1S-(3D)-Double-(Pass)-4C-(Pass)-4S-All Pass and I was in the top spot as West. North led the three of diamonds and I knew that the diamonds had to be 8-3, as South would have raised with four-card support. I won the diamond with the ace, and started to work out the odds before playing trumps. The chance of South having the king of spades is 10/15, as South has ten non-diamonds to North's five. Similarly for South having the jack of spades. The chance of South having both the king and jack of spades is not quite that squared, but is 10/15*9/14. Or 43%. Against the odds, but it is still right to take a "deep finesse" on the first round, as I did, as the only other line for 12 tricks, playing for singleton king or jack with North is quite a bit worse. You have to pick one of them to play for as well, and that comes out at only 7%. Of course, taking two finesses may lose to KJ doubleton with North, but that would be unlucky. The fine software program, Suit Play, confirms that the best play in the suit at matchpoints is running the ten, which generates 3.98 tricks against silent opponents.

Interestingly, with no opposition bidding, one should play the same line, but it is worth mentioning that with nine spades, the percentage line is to finesse the queen on the first round. So I guess that my mind was full of vacant thoughts and all I could find was some empty words to explain what I was thinking!