The Aces on Bridge: Tuesday, October 7th, 2014
Calvin: I’m a misunderstood genius.
Hobbes: What’s misunderstood?
Calvin: Nobody thinks I’m a genius.
Bill Watterson
| South | North |
|---|---|
| East-West | ♠ — ♥ K Q 9 8 6 3 ♦ 9 5 ♣ A 10 8 7 3 |
| West | East |
|---|---|
| ♠ 7 ♥ A 5 ♦ A K 8 7 6 4 3 2 ♣ Q 5 |
♠ 8 6 3 2 ♥ J 10 7 ♦ Q J ♣ K J 4 2 |
| South |
|---|
| ♠ A K Q J 10 9 5 4 ♥ 4 2 ♦ 10 ♣ 9 6 |
| South | West | North | East |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4♠ | 5♦ | Pass | Pass |
| 5♠ | Pass | Pass | Dbl. |
| All pass |
♦K
The line between looking foolish and being a genius is a fine one. Today’s deal comes from the Spring Foursomes, where South decided to take what she knew would be a relatively cheap sacrifice. Fortunately for her, North’s values turned out to be extremely useful. West led a top diamond, on which East played the queen. Now what should West do? switch to a club? or try to cash a second top diamond?
Influenced no doubt by East’s double, West decided his partner had a singleton and played a second top diamond. Declarer ruffed, drew trump, then played a heart to dummy’s king, followed by a second heart. When West’s ace came tumbling down, she had a parking place for her club loser. Yes, maybe it would have been right for West to shift to the club queen at trick two — since unless declarer had both the king and jack of clubs, this would probably not let the contract through.
In the other room North did double five diamonds, and led a top heart. Now, although five diamonds by West appears to have three losers, the fact that North was void in spades meant there was plenty of time for declarer to establish a club or heart trick for a spade discard. Even if South had gone down in five spades doubled, she would still have gained a bushel of IMPs. As it was, our featured North-South pair had a double game-swing.
You may not agree with the opening call of two hearts; but as long as the heart suit is good and you have a side-suit, you won't be at a disadvantage. The question is how to show the hand now. The answer is to jump to four clubs, which suggests this pattern and lets your partner go wherever he wants.
BID WITH THE ACES
| ♠ — ♥ K Q 9 8 6 3 ♦ 9 5 ♣ A 10 8 7 3 |
| South | West | North | East |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2♥ | Pass | 2 NT | Pass |
| ? |
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Bridge-related
Hi Bobby,
This may seem banal, but as an aspiring novice, am I correct in my observation that as the distribution gets wilder the bidding gets totally unscientific and almost a pure guess (and so do the possible outcomes)? I find today’s column hand a good example of this. It’s almost like we’re playing a different game.
Hi Bobby,
One pointer towards west getting it right is South’s likely diamond holding. Jx is surely more of a deterrent to bidding on than a singleton. Having said that, I can see Mircea’s point!
regards,
Iain
Hi Bobby,
One pointer towards west getting it right is South’s likely diamond holding. Jx is surely more of a deterrent to bidding on than a singleton. Having said that, I can see Mircea’s point!
regards,
Iain
Hi Mircea,
Judy & I are now playing in a Sectional at the strip and are participating in events which symbolize the Wild, Wild, West.
Yes, bridge has a way of changing its colors to” Everyone Knows, Anything Goes”!
It has always been known as a bidder’s game, but often it gets a little too much. Today’s column is representative of exactly your description where instead of the last bidder getting the zero, it instead, gets the windfall.
But just when one gets flustered with all the luck, a hand will come along which requires much skill in handling and we all then settle in to admire what is accomplished.
Calling yourself an aspiring novice is a definite underbid.
All in a session’s work.
Hi Iain,
Yes, Souths bidding surely points to holding only a singleton diamond rather than Jx. However players are not allowed to bring their own psychiatrist to both kibitz and advise, so the competitors who seem to understand what makes their opponent(s) tick are a leg up on winning.
Perhaps Rudyard Kipling said it better when he suggested that to keep one’s head about you, when all about him seemed to be losing theirs, is on the way to becoming a MAN. During a long life time most of us can remember at least several times, usually with both good and bad results, this scenario has occurred.
In bridge, “table feel” is usually reserved for only describing the best of the best.
Thanks Bobby and best of luck. Normally the site stops duplicate postings so I don’t know what happened tonight. How could the server know I’d just been at the dentist having root canal work, so decided to use the post twice to take my mind off the discomfort?
Iain
CQ caters to declarer having a doubleton. If it’s cashing now, it’s cashing later when we come in with the heart. I think it’s more interesting for us to try and figure out HOW to cash out. In what way should partner follow to spades? Or, how should he follow to the heart when we fly ace second hand?
Hi anonymous,
We know of course how to follow suit in order to guide partner to the winning defense. However, on this hand neither partner can be sure of the other’s distribution making it a guessing contest. West, after switching to the queen of clubs may be doing it from three instead of two, depending on how many diamonds he started with but once the club ace has been knocked out at trick two, it makes no never mind, unless one thinks that West has a problem with either winning the first
heart or the second.
At a certain level, and with everyone involved but the dummy, all three of the participants are constantly trying to reconstruct the unseen two hands, both for logic in the bidding, leading up to achieving par for both declarer’s and defensive goals. Every now and then one of the players scores a birdie, usually with not only the right view, but also somewhat disguising his own hand, if the hated opponents are still able to overcome the best play or defense. The raging battles between the two partnerships are what makes the game what it is, simply the best overall mind competition, sure with some luck involved, but that is the
spoon which stirs the challenge and, of course, the eventual result.
I hope I am not stirring a debate between the merits of chess and bridge. Granted chess is a purer game, with no luck involved and just a battle to the end between two players. However with all the added peaks and valleys of bridge, it, at least to me, will win the interesting award, if for no other reason, than the electricity almost always present.