Noli Me Tangere by Foxymoron

The above phrase, which means "Touch me not" was reportedly spoken, according to John 20:17, by Jesus to Mary Magdalene when she recognised him after his resurrection. It was depicted in art in a painting, also called Noli me tangere, by Correggio. This is in the Museo del Prada in Madrid, which is well worth a visit.

Its relevance to bridge is that one often has to decide whether two adjacent honours are touching or not, particularly when the opponent plays one. The principle of restricted choice is a key one in bridge; it states that when someone plays one of two touching honours, their partner is twice as likely to have the other touching honour. When I got this wrong this week at the Woodberry, I scored a complete zero.

We bid, P-(P)-1H-(2H)-3H-(3S)-4H-(4S)-P-(P)-5H-(All Pass). I expected a bit more for my partner's 3H bid, but we would have had a bad score for defending 4S, which only one other pair bid. Malcolm Morris, East, and Matthew Hendrickson, West, did well to push us to Five Hearts. East led the queen of diamonds which was interesting, and I thought that this was more likely to be QJ doubleton than a singleton, and definitely was not Qx. It is not clear that the rule of restricted choice applies here, as players very rarely lead the jack of a side suit when they have QJ doubleton as partner is likely to be confused. Also a singleton queen, on this auction, is a dangerous lead which might save declarer a guess. To cut a long story short, I drew trumps and when I discovered that East had one trump, I played for East to be AJxxx x QJ AQxxx, or the like, unsuccessfully. Had East led a normal jack of spades, and provided the defence cashed their club winner at trick two, I might well have gone off anyway. It seems normal to play for West to have QJx or QJxx in diamonds.  In the end, virtue had to be its own reward, a phrase that seems to have originated from Cicero.

Force Majeure by Foxymoron

The origin of the phrase force majeure is around 1820. The principles behind the force majeure clause originated in England. In Taylor v. Caldwell, an English court decided that circumstances beyond the control or fault of two contracting parties excused performance under their contract.

In bridge, force majeure should not really apply, as one or other partner is usually to blame for reaching the wrong contract. Disagreement on whether a bid is forcing is a common reason for a debacle and this is within the control of the contracting parties. As there are a mere (4*(22)^35-1)/3 distinct bidding auctions (around 10^50), comfortably less than the number of atoms in the universe (around 10^80), the keen student can agree which bids force partner to bid again. One of the contestants on BBC's Mastermind had a misunderstanding of what a "force" was when he responded (from Dumb Britain):

But I digress. In this week's duplicate, two strong players had a disagreement on whether 3H was forcing on the following hand:

The auction, uncontested, was 1H-1S-2C-2NT-3H-Pass. West thought he had limited his hand by 2NT, and East was showing a weak 6-4. East thought that 3H was forcing, showing six hearts. Readers might like to decide whether 3H would be forcing in their methods. My view is that it is non-forcing as that is how one bids with a weak 6-4, just worth an opening bid.

Nobody reached the reasonable 6H which will make if the heart finesse is right and has chances when it is not. However, only one person made 12 tricks in 4H. The right line, on the spade lead is to win and run the jack of hearts. South will win and exit with a trump, but declarer can run all the hearts and South is squeezed in the minors. In the six-card ending he has to keep four diamonds and three clubs and this cannot be done. The only better results for EW was when North injudiciously saved in 4S for -1400, an Owain - after the rebellion of 1400.  A clear case of monochromacy.

Cut the Link by Foxymoron

Four Musketeers from the Woodberry had a successful day at the London Metropolitan Bridge Association Teams of Four on 9th July. There were quite a few Woodberry members who also did well, in particular Andrew Clery and Bill Linton in the team that finished fifth.

One of the most interesting and complicated boards was the following:

Stefanie Rohan did well on this hand. East, Paul Lamford opened 1C and John Cox, also a Woodberry member, doubled as South. Stefanie, West, redoubled and David Willis, North, upped the ante with 2S. East and South passed and Stefanie made the practical bid of 3NT.

North led the seven of spades to the ace and South continued with the ace and another heart to West's ten (ducking works well) and North's queen. Now North switched to the eight of diamonds which South won with the king. At this point South needed to cut the link with a club shift, but instead missed his chance by playing a third heart. West won and cashed her red winners to squeeze North in the black suits. John, an expert who has won the Camrose for England, realised he had to play a club quite quickly afterwards.

As David Burn once said, "An expert is one who knows what he should have done just after he did something else".

The winning team, left to right, Paul Lamford, Stefanie Rohan, Chantelle Girardin, Ken Barnett.

Quant by Foxymoron

Years ago the only meaning of "quant" was a punting pole used by those going up and down our canals. And it was a useful word in Scrabble.

The computer era spawned a number of new words and quant was one of them. It is short for quantitative analysis and any trader in the stock market is familiar with it and the quant network.

In bridge, the word QUANT is used on convention cards most often to explain the raise of 1NT or 2NT to 4NT, and here it means quantitative. The convention card police asked me to explain QUANT on my card in the Camrose, which seemed very petty. Partner is invited to go to six or to pass. A more refined version deals with what happens if partner then bids at the five-level or six-level in a suit. The former is best played as the response to simple Blackwood, to avoid bidding a slam off two aces. The latter is usually played as showing a good 5-card suit which might play better than no-trumps. 

Shelley Shieff judged well on the following hand.

We had the simple auction 1NT-4NT-Pass and it transpired that 6NT needed the clubs to break 3-3, a 36% chance. Of course they did on this occasion and we scored well below average as many pairs just punted the slam. There was a certain irony that a quant was originally a punting pole. So, the operation was a success but the patient died.  This very old expression stems from 1829 in the US:

29 August 1829, Savannah Georgian (Savannah, GA), pg. 3, col. 1:

A successful operation!—A late paper has the following paragraph: “Amputation at the hip joint. This operation was performed about two months ago at Odinburgh (Edinburgh) by Mr. Liston. The operation was successful, but the patient died!“

Grand Scheme by Foxymoron

There was an exciting last board in an earlier match in the NICKO against Mike Bell's team, where the opponents had to find a successful lead against 7S Redoubled, and did so. Woodberry A thus found themselves in the NICKO plate, making a pleasant journey to Tunbridge Wells. This is one of the nicest clubs in Britain, a few minutes walk from the railway station, and with their own grandiose premises. 

There were not many swings in the match, with a game made in one room and a missed slam in the other room, but then a wild board occurred. Try it first as a play problem before you scroll down for the full hand. It is 7NT by South.

West led the king of clubs. As you can see there are 12 top tricks and an unlikely 3-3 diamond break would give you plenty of tricks. Declarer won the club lead and cashed the top diamonds discarding two clubs and a spade. Diamonds did not break so now declarer needed a diamond-spade squeeze but that did not work either and so he went one down, losing 17 IMPs against 6NT in the other room. What had he missed?

This was the full hand. There is no hurry to cash the top diamonds and declarer should first of all play six rounds of hearts discarding a club and three diamonds from South. Now declarer crosses to the ace of spades and cashes three top diamonds. West is squeezed in spades and clubs. If East were in sole guard of spades and diamonds, this would still work, as East would be squeezed in diamonds and spades on the last heart. Keeping the nine of clubs in dummy is the key to the hand.

At the table, West discarded the eight of clubs on the first diamond (!) but noticed that he had a diamond in with his hearts in time. The eight of clubs became a major penalty card and now declarer could have made the contract by playing a club to the nine. Of course this was an unlikely line, but the double squeeze was not.

Woodberry A, Lamford and Conway, Barnett and Bernard, ran out comfortable winners by 21 IMPs and now play away to Thame A in the next round.

Queen of Diamonds by Foxymoron

 

The playing card which seems to feature most in art is the queen of diamonds, a symbol of both wealth and greed. Surprisingly it is the playing card that features most often in tattoos as well. 

It is not my favourite card, and I failed to guess who had it in a hand from last week.

I opened 1H on the North hand, and playing fairly simple methods my partner could do little other than raise to 4H. This can be a bit weaker than South had, and I decided not to make a slam-try on the North hand. That was prudent, as I would probably not have made it. I would have led the queen of spades on the East hand, but Raoul Fishman led a trump. I won and played a second trump and now it looked normal to lead the king of diamonds and another diamond. 

West played low perforce, and I had to decide who had the lady. I could play the ace and ruff a diamond. This would make 12 if the diamonds were 3-3 and at least 11 if they were 4-2. I could ruff a club, ruff another diamond, ruff a club and discard a spade on the long diamond. Perhaps the best line.

But knowing that the queen of diamonds was indicative of greed, I decided to run the jack of diamonds. Now I would have made 13 if the diamonds were 3-3 with the queen onside, and still 12 if the diamonds were 4-2 with the queen on. Sadly, East won and now played a spade and the defence had two tricks. I was still hopeful that if East had the ace of spades he would not play one, but not to be. He led a spade and West won his ace.

The good result of only conceding -650 helped Raoul and his partner David Evans to a fine win.

Binkies by Foxymoron

The method of hand evaluation known as the Milton Work Count was deveioped for Auction Bridge, using the 4-3-2-1 system for ace, king, queen, jack. Sometimes ½ was used for a ten, and Milton Work wrote extensively on the subject in the early twentieth century. By the end of the century, Thomas Andrews had been exploring the inaccuracies of this system and published an article on his website entitled Binky Points. One of the prime advocates of this improved system of hand evaluation has been Brian "Binkie" Callaghan, the doyen of the Young Chelsea Bridge Club.

How did the sobriquet  "Binkie" come about? Well, not as some thought from Binkie Muddlefoot of Darkwing Duck fame. She is female, and doesn't look a bit like Brian Callaghan. 

Binkie Muddlefoot

Another possibility was Binky Barnes, a character in Arthur but that can be ruled out as it is spelt with a y at the end.

Binky Barnes

The truth is that it comes from the West End Theatre impresario who brought My Fair Lady and West Side Story to London.

Binkie Beaumont

So, how does the Binkie system work? Well, in Binkie's own words:  "It involves fractions, sixths, and includes the ten as follows: 4⅓, 2⅚, 1⅔, ⅚, ⅓. So aces are up ⅓, kings down ⅙, queens down ⅓, jacks down ⅙ and tens up ⅓. There are still 40 points in the deck to make it easy."

A hand this week at the Woodberry shows that a more accurate hand evaluation would have led to a good game being bid.

Let us look at the East hand first, after a pass by North. It has 14 "Miltons" but we can add ⅔ point for the two aces and ⅔ for the two tens, deduct ⅓ for the queen, and deduct ⅙ for the jack. That makes it 14⅚. A couple of other rules that are worth considering if you want refinement. Deduct ½ for 4-3-3-3 and add ½ for 5-3-3-2. Neither of those apply here. Having a doubleton queen or jack is a disadvantage, about ⅙ down. Finally three honours in the same suit is a bonus, about ⅙ up. The heart combination elevates the East hand to 15 points. After a few attempts you can get the Binkie count in about ten seconds.

I would have opened 1NT on the East hand, 15-17. West would have bid Stayman over that and bid game in no-trumps. The actual auction, 1C-1S-1NT showed 11-14 and now let us look at the number of binkies in the West hand. It has 11 HCP. We can add ⅓ for the ace, and deduct ⅓ for the two kings. So they cancel out. We add ⅓ for the ten and deduct ⅙ for the jack. So 11⅙. Only slightly better than the number of Miltons and at matchpoints one might well take the conservative view and pass. If partner has 11 or 12 points even 2NT might not make. But West was maximum for her pass, and East just about enough for a strong NT. The combination was a missed game.

How should the play go in 1NT (or 3NT) by East? Well on the diamond lead, declarer probably ducks in both hands and wins the second diamond in dummy and plays a heart to the ten. South will win and clear the diamonds. East will win and percentage in clubs is to run the queen but this is covered, and another heart finesse to the jack wins. Now declarer will lead a club to the nine but North wins and declarer is held to nine tricks. Many lines looking through the back of the cards lead to ten or eleven tricks, but not reaching game was a poor score.