The Aces on Bridge: Thursday, March 26th, 2015
You have to keep a watch on the Swiss.
Anonymous
| East | North |
|---|---|
| North-South | ♠ A ♥ A 10 8 4 ♦ K 7 4 ♣ A J 7 6 5 |
| West | East |
|---|---|
| ♠ 8 6 2 ♥ K J 7 5 2 ♦ J 8 6 5 3 ♣ — |
♠ K J 10 5 3 ♥ 6 ♦ A ♣ Q 10 9 4 3 2 |
| South |
|---|
| ♠ Q 9 7 4 ♥ Q 9 3 ♦ Q 10 9 2 ♣ K 8 |
| South | West | North | East |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1♣ | |||
| Pass | 1♥ | Pass | 1♠ |
| Pass | Pass | Dbl. | Pass |
| 1 NT | 2♦ | Dbl. | 2♠ |
| 2 NT | Pass | 3 NT | All pass |
♠8
In important events these days you can watch the experts on the internet, but you can also attend the tournament and watch them play live on close-circuit TV, with commentators watching the players’ every move.
Today’s deal was played under just such conditions 50 years ago by Montreal expert Sam Gold. He was able to outplay the analysts, who of course could see all four hands.
Gold had done well in the auction, since he reached a vulnerable game with decent chances rather than trying for a penalty double of two spades, a contract that is hard to defeat by more than one trick, even after a trump lead. But while Gold was planning his play in three no-trumps, the commentators said that finding the right line to bring home nine tricks would be beyond most people. But Sam proved them wrong.
After winning dummy’s spade ace, a low diamond went to East’s ace, more or less confirming him to have singletons in each red suit. East returned the spade jack to Gold’s queen, and Sam next ran the diamond 10 through West. When this held the trick, a diamond was led to the king, and the heart ace cashed, removing East’s lone heart.
Now Gold came back to his hand with a top club, and took his master diamond for his seventh trick. When he exited with a high spade, East could score his three remaining spades, but then had to lead into the club tenace in dummy and concede nine tricks.
You have a choice here. You can simply raise to two hearts, a relatively wide-ranging action in competition, or you can double for take-out. With three hearts and limited values, I think I will settle for the raise. Switch the hearts and clubs and the double stands out, and equally, with an extra king, doubling gets the high cards across nicely.
BID WITH THE ACES
| ♠ Q 9 7 4 ♥ Q 9 3 ♦ Q 10 9 2 ♣ K 8 |
| South | West | North | East |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1♣ | 1♥ | 2♣ | |
| ? |
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Bridge-related
Hi everyone,
The BWTA feature has a serious error. In actuality East only bid 1 spade and was so documented, but something both unknown and untoward caused it to be listed as 2 spades.
Perhaps those who read the column two weeks earlier in their local newspaper will be so kind as to be able to recall whether this hand listed 2 spades or the intended correct version of 1 spade at that time.
Obviously I apologize again for these horrible distortions with the goal of not ever allowing them to happen.
Sam Gold owned a bridge club in Montreal where it was my pleasure to play many times, occasionally even with Sam himself. I will never forget the time he got to a reasonable contract, but I knew that everything was breaking very badly, so I doubled. Sam immediately sat bolt upright and then played the hand like he could see every card, and of course he made his contract. Taught me a lesson. A kind and wonderful man who is greatly missed.
The local paper here runs your column but never includes the bidding problem.
I guess it is easier to play against Garozzo than to write a column. The foot soldiers were easier to handle.
Hi Jim2,
Yes, since the playing of bridge, seemingly everywhere back in the glory days of bridge being featured in the book departments of the leading downtown giant stores, plus important spots in the leading magazines, Cosmopolitan, Sports Illustrated and Charles Goren being on the cover of Time, plus intellectual ones like The New Yorker (with regular cartoons by Webster).
Emphasis changed during the Viet Nam War when kids decided to not want to do what their parents did, resulting with our beautiful game taking a major hit.
Since then and in the USA, bridge (and syndicated bridge columns) have been severely reduced in importance, since rarely does the appointed bridge editor at our client newpapers even play bridge, resulting in more sloth creeping to our reporting and worse, our presentation.
It will not be solved until and unless teaching bridge is established in schools here at home, as it is now in many countries in Europe and to 200,000,000 million students in China on a daily basis and to be so for at least 6+ years.
At least to me, why that is not a major focus with Horn Lake, and with the nothing less than rave notices from those other continents mentioned from both teachers and students alike, is bewildering to me?
Yes, catering to our largest group of elderly seniors (in which I am certainly one of them) is far from what our administration should be doing. Of course, by doing so it will likely keep bridge alive for a relatively short while, but never will it perpetuate our game to what it deserves to be, merely the greatest competitive mind game ever invented. So much of its logic, numeracy required, psychology, use of legal code language (bidding), and healthy competitiveness evident, making its knowledge in real life more valuable to most than, instead, the study of advanced math (geometry and trigonometry) and countless other specialized subjects which have, up to now, been staple in our scholastic system.
Excuse the above rant, but I think you must know why I think it necessary to still not be too late to at least try.
Hi Bill,
While writing and distributing a bridge column is a labor of love, it should not be a real problem, but like most worthwhile endeavors needs a competent and reliable chain of people who also love the game to take it from the womb to the tomb.
When all parts of that chain, including yours truly, sometimes do not rise to the occasion, sloth (and gremlins) take over and have their sorrowful say.
Benito was (is) indeed brilliant beyond belief and the foot soldiers have long since disappeared from sight (no doubt making a career of tap dancing) making their era electric and therefore at the least, interesting enough to not continue to beat that horse, although, no doubt, the overall result was certainly not all peaches and cream for the game itself.
Ever onward, ever forward is now what I hope. Our only chance is for someone or better, some caring organizational group, to come to bridge’s aid and very soon, otherwise bridge in the Western Hemisphere will eventually vanish with the morning light.