Hi Bobby,

Isn’t the deal as shown slightly flawed since cashing the HAK drops the queen? West needs another heart. Also, if south does draw trumps and leads a club to the ace, he can still recover when the queen drops
. Eliminate the majors and then duck a club to west, assuming HQ hasn’t fallen. This doesn’t detract from the optimal line of course; it just shows how unlucky declarer would need to be if he tried an inferior approach.

Regards,

Iain

Also, commiserations to USA’s football (soccer) team last night, especially Tim Howard who played brilliantly. Deservedly went further than England.

Hi Iain,

You make a good point about the queen of hearts dropping, so why worry about the bad club break since, if played that way, would not matter.

Our point of view on this and related matters is that an alternate line of play, clearly inferior, might be to first test the clubs, find them not breaking and then fall back on the heart finesse (since most sensible declarers, somewhat of an oxymoron, would play East, not West for the heart length and therefore more likely to hold the queen).

Surely the above alternate line fails, not because it would normally not work, it would, however, today the TOCM tm would destroy the contract, with the moral to us all, of being a well deserved ending (at least, probably, if necessary, decided by Aesop).

To your everlasting credit, your alternate lines include trying for extra ways to overcome, which means only that, even when wrong, you choose better lines than other wrong choosers.

Yes, although far from being an avid soccer watcher, Tim Howard’s athleticism and fervent desire shined brightly, but until soccer wins the hearts of Americas very sports conscience masses, we will not devote enough time, money and energy to be world competitive. At least England will often succeed, only not this year.

Perhaps the USA with their relatively loose, though sometimes positive, but political and somewhat random immigration policies will soon harbor potential soccer giants to change the above. Is that overall assessment good or bad? You tell me.

Hi Bobby,

I think your assessment on the US soccer team making good use of the country’s diversity is right, and that the US will continue to get better. Nobody treats them lightly now although look up their result vs. England in 1950 for a laugh from your side of the ocean anyway.

England, apart from bad luck in 1970, 1986 and 1990, have been living mostly on the memory of 1966. In the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, Douglas Adams describes an amusing scenario where 2 missiles approach a spaceship above a planet but are transformed into a whale and a bowl of petunias by use of the infinite improbability drive. Both plummet and the whale’s thought processes are given in detail before its gruesome demise. “Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias was – Oh no, not again!”. England football fans know the feeling.

Iain

Hi Iain,

Your whale, petunia story reminds me of trying to compare the horrible side of losing a highly competitive contest (such as a high-level bridge match against hateful opponents) and the event of just dying, something most of us will likely one day, encounter.

The consensus determined that losing the match was significantly worse, since when done, it is likely that it will happen again.

At least the above is somewhat comforting, yes, only somewhat.

Hi again,

Chess can provide pointers here. Bill Hartston said resignation in a “friendly” game should be accompanied by appropriate words e.g. I hope that makes you happy, you smug *******, as there’s little else in your philistine, abject existence to be cheerful about.

One strong player was more spectacular after losing to a weaker opponent. He stood on a chair, hurled his king across the room and yelled “How can I lose to this idiot?”. Oh dear!

Iain

Bobby,

On the BWTA hand, if West also passes and assuming partner’s Rdbl shows 10+ with no fit for us and no suit of his own, is he required to use the red card for blood? If yes, do we leave it in?

Hi Mircea,

Partner’s redouble could be different type hands, including trump support, although some partnerships frown on such a thing, but always a reasonable one strength wise, (10+).

While no one, in this case partner and after redoubling, is required to do any specific thing next round, except of course, not to pass does opt to double, yes we should pass with glee since my expectation would be to set it 2-4 tricks. That sort of result may not be in the cards, but only one which would justify the double. Even down 1 would be just fine, if we, because of bad breaks or location of cards for our side, could not make anything approaching a game.

The only worrisome aspect of the BWTA hand is that we could have opened 1NT (my choice) since the strength of my NT range (15-17) plus even the slightly skewed balanced nature (2-2-5-4) is perhaps a more apt description than 1 diamond, enabling a faster realization by partner how to then judge his hand after the bidding gets under way.

However that result is to be determined and until it is, we will have to reserve our opinion about how to get there from here and the most convenient and sure way to the optimum contract. Such is the everyday bidding of a hand, in order to determine how the language of bridge should have gone.

The above description is intended to sound like what bidding really is, a code language to do the best our partnership can do in using what we have to work with to follow the Yellow Brick Road, to our intended location.

Nothing close to perfect should ever be expected, only a mental bonding with partner as to what we are attempting to disclose requiring, experience, consistency, consideration, and most importantly a good sense of humor.

Remember, stay away from the poisoned flowers of lost concentration and being unilateral, because those two afflictions are very hard to overcome.

Hi Iain,

Although my chess knowledge reeks from what some loser to me (really a far-fetched imagination) and using your suggested name identification would think and say, borders on being a criminal abuse, although, somewhat unusually, without contact.

And to your last example involving hurling while doing it, could that have been known as, in the days of yore, of castling one’s king?

Not exactly, as Ii think it was a case of a known psychological diisorder i.e.

T ension
A ccentuated
N eurological
T rauma
R esulting (in)
U ncontrolled
M ayhem
S yndrome

or something like that!