Some Days All You Get is an Intersting Hand!

Some Days All You Get is an Interesting Hand

As time keeps nibbling at your memory and focus, the results tell the story. So it is for me, and all I get many days are interesting hands to ponder. If you are able to retain your brilliant and clever partners through these tribulations, you also get reminded along the way of how fortunate you really are to hang onto them. 

If I had to judge last Friday by the result, I would have to say that it wasn’t even worth $1.50, but Board 27 provided both several bidding options as well as a platform for my partner, Mike Spitulnik, to demonstrate his declaring skills which are highly regarded here in our little Rochester bridge community. Here is the hand rotated to show South as the declarer. None vulnerable and West, as dealer, passes. Now it is up to North!

********* AQ94

*********void
*********AQT76
********* AJ87

8*******************J32

K743***************T986
KJ543**************98
QT9****************K652

 *********KT765

*********AQJ52
*********2
*********43

I am sitting North and have to make a decision, stay in tempo and try to salvage something from the day. I never really counted points on this hand, just calculated Losing Trick Count (LTC) and the Quick Tricks (QT). I remember my excellent Florida mentor, Pat Peterson, telling me about the 4+4 Rule. This bidding guideline says that you can open a hand with 2 clubs if you have four LTC and four QT’s. Playing rules always provide a good defense in the post mortems, so I opened 2 clubs. I felt comfortable with this because I never counted hcps nor considered what I was going to say as my dummy only came down with only 17. I am sure most opened my hand 1 diamond. Perhaps double dummy you can reach a spade slam, but 10 out of 14 failed. If you choose that route I think it needs to go 1d/1s/4h (splinter). This does not look good from South’s position since there are 7 hcps of duplication in hearts and good bridge says to bid 4 spades.

Mike and I were playing “2 diamonds waiting” so his hand is worth a positive bid and he correctly bid 2 spades so he could bid two hearts later if necessary and not take up unnecessary bidding space in a game force auction. With a heart void and no prior agreement of how to show it in our 1430 system, I decided that I wanted to control the hand from my side so I set the trump suit by bidding 3 spades. As Robert Burns wrote “The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.” Mike’s next bid was not 4 spades but rather 4 NT! In retrospect, I think he was justified in assuming “Captaincy” since I had already shown my hand and values and his hand was still unlimited. Now I am right where I did not want to be. How do you show a void when partner launches into key card not knowing you have one?

My friend and expert, Eddie Kantar, explains it this way:

(i) 5NT shows 0 or 2 keycards and a void somewhere.
(ii) 6 clubs shows 1 or 3 key cards and a club void.
(iii) 6 diamonds shows 1 or 3 keys and a diamond void.
(iv) 6 hearts shows 1 or 3 keys plus a void in hearts.
(v) 6 of the agreed suit shows 1 or 3 and a void in a higher ranking suit.

 You only use these responses so long as the response does not carry you beyond 6 of the agreed suit. If we had an understanding my bid would have been 6 hearts. Absent an understanding I bid 5 diamonds showing 1 or 3. Since our agreed suit is spades Mike could have employed a "Queen Ask" by bidding 5 hearts and my response would have been either 5 hearts denying the queen, or in this case 5 spades showing the queen. You can only use this Queen Ask when spades are the agreed suit, as a response of 5 hearts when hearts is the agreed suit is a close out.

Another approach to bidding Mike’s hand would be to ignore the key card ask entirely. I am suggesting something called the “Grand Slam Force” invented by Josephine Culbertson about 80 years ago, but still in the bidding vocabulary of experts. I have used this twice in my life and both times in the same afternoon. After I bid 3 spades setting the trump, a bid of 5NT asks partner to bid a grand slam with two of the top three honors in the trump suit, and otherwise bid a small slam. This is my chance to bid 7 spades! How can you justify foregoing a key card ask only to show the grand eloquence of your bidding style. Easy, partner did open 2 clubs and hopefully he has the values (hcps and/or distribution) to support it.

In real life, Mike was not going to give me the chance to "f-bomb" this up. After I showed 3 key cards Mike bid 7 spades in an effort to reclaim full benefit for his entry fee. With 14 tables, 2 played a small slam, we played a grand and the rest stopped at game. Mike was the only declarer to make 13 tricks which, according to the computer, can be made against any lead and from either side. Our opponent led the 8 of spades and who can blame her. Looking only at the N-S hands, see if you can do it. Did I not tell you my partner is clever! He is so modest he probably has already crawled under his desk.

Can I claim anything for myself? Well, blogger’s are not supposed to be self-aggrandizers, but in retrospect I think Pat Peterson’s playing rule led me to the best opening bid. First, Mike was assured that I had no more than 4 LTC. Since we have a fit, the LTC formula should apply. Since he has 6 LTC, we have together 10 LTC. To determine the number of tricks we are likely to take subtract the losing trick count from 24 or 24-10=14, a Grand with an overtrick yet! The 4 QT requirement assures him that this is not just some long suit, but rather I have some outside stuff as well.

How did we get catapulted into seven spades? Well we knew the hcp requirement was a number ending in 7, and in end result we found out that 27 seems to work as well as 37. Remember, this is discussion, not dogma, and as long as you bid and make 7 spades, do it your way.

This Fiish Will Bite on Anything!

I was salivating over a 3 NT contract last week at the Wednesday game at Temple Beth El. I could see that everyone would be in 3NT, so I dedicated myself to getting that extra trick that must be lurking somewhere in this computer generated hand. Here are the N-S hands:

North

AJ97
KJ
AKQ94
J9

South
Q63
A96
32
AT532

The opening lead from West was the heart 3, I put in the J and it held. I knew that the odds of the diamond suit splitting 3-3 were about 35% and the 4-2 break was 48%. The true odds of running diamonds from the top was about 39% since the JT doubleton in either hand would also work holding the 9 of diamonds. If I get lucky and run 5 diamond tricks, maybe somebody will discard a spade and help me out.

I started with the Ace of diamonds and I see Greg Giles, who is sitting East, smoothly play the Jack of diamonds. Greg was someone I did not know, but his face was totally innocent, so I credited him with a stiff Jack and decided to go after West’s ten that was bracketed by my Q-9. I came back to my hand and led the 3 toward my Q-9 tenace and see Greg taking my trick with the 10 of diamonds. Did he start with the JT? Oh no, worse than that, he had played the J from JT5 and I went for it like a rat to cheese!

While clearing my head, I hear a loud roar of laughter at the table. I am about to lecture my opponent for gloating and look across the table and see it is my partner Jim Bailey who is laughing telling me I got suckered by a clever false card. Well, at this point I am thinking that if I have to go down, there is nobody else I would rather take with me than Jim.

It is all very humiliating: Here I am the Prince of Probabilities being taken down like a novice. Still licking my wounds in the aftermath, and clinging to a faint hope that I can patch up my reputation, I turn to the Encyclopedia of Bridge looking under suit combinations. Sure enough, I found the exact card holding with the following play advice:

1. For 5 Tricks play the top honors hoping that the Jack and Ten drop in 3 rounds. It is a 39% probability.

2. For 4 Tricks (a safety play) start by leading small to the 9 in case East is void or has a single that is lower than the 9. This play will take 4 tricks 90% of the time.

3. When playing against players who are not devious and unlikely to false card the Jack when holding JTx, cash the Ace and if you see an honor drop from East, finesse the 9 on the next play.

So my claim is that I did not make a mistake or get suckered, I just misjudged Greg’s character. He is in fact a deceiver and a ruthless one at that. How did it all work out? We got a zero on the board, but I was able to swallow my pride and recover for a high finish. The moral of this story is never trust an innocent face. Or better yet, just mindlessly lay down the top 3 honors no matter what you see.

If I substitute the ten on the board in place of the nine, should you now finesse the ten or play the diamond honors from the top? I don’t have to look in the Encyclopedia of Bridge to know that finesse is a 50% probability, so at first blush it looks like the finesse is the percentage play. But wait, adding the 10 in place of the 9 changes everything, since the Jack becomes a significant card. No defender would play the Jack from Jx since it would give declarer the whole suit, and this changes the odds on the 3-3 break from 39% to 52%. Thus, playing the honors from the top is 2% superior to taking the finesse. For those who want the mathematical explanation of these phenomena, see my blog post of September 23, 2007 entitled “The Odds and Ends of Bridge (Post Graduate Course).”

Will all of this convince Jim Bailey that I am not a fish? Absolutely not, so perhaps I should just admit that I got bamboozled by an innocent face. A pretty face works equally as well, so powder your nose ladies.

Larry Miles RIP -- Spadewood Lives On

Larry Miles was one of my early bridge blog readers. He often sent me comments and I could tell Larry was not your average bridge player. I eventually asked him where he was from, and said L.A. I replied I have a brother in Los Angeles, and he said that he meant Lower Alabama, Mobile to be precise. It turned out that his summer home was in Newark, New York, about 45 minutes from mine. We arranged a few summer games, but his favorite partner was his wife Julie, so our opportunities were limited.
Larry was everything I ever wanted in a bridge partner. He was kind, modest, self-effacing, polite, caring, and always the southern gentleman that his momma brought him up to be. As I found out later, his bridge skills and analytical abilities matched all of his excellent personal traits. He was one of the best that I have ever seen at solving play of the hand problems and was well versed in classic bridge literature.
Larry developed serious health problems and died about a month ago. So he and I never got to complete our games planned for this summer. I just wished I had a final game and a chance to tell him how much his friendship meant to me and the inspiration he provided to me. Larry had his own thoughts on how to bid certain hands and hated both Blackwood and Gerber over 1NT openers. He found often they resulted in confusion and thought them deficient in reaching light suit slams when partner opened 1NT (15-17). If the partnership had 31 or 32 hcps, had all 4 aces and could find a 4-4 fit, he wanted to be in slam.
 In no trump auctions he wanted to get rid of both Gerber and Blackwood, and he developed the perfect foil to accomplish this, SPADEWOOD. When partner opened 1NT, he used both Stayman and Major Suit Transfers and 2NT to show a hand that wanted to play minors. This left open the 2 spade bid which was “Spadewood.”
 Spadewood initially starts out as a range ask (not uncommon among some expert players) and opener bids 2NT with 15-16 hcps. This rebid can be passed if responder only wished to play at game against maximum no trump hand. So that takes care of invitational hands. If opener has 17 hcps, he shows the number of Aces starting with 3 clubs = 0, 3 diamonds = 1 etc. If responder is interested in slam he then starts by bidding his 4 card suits up the line in an effort to find a 4-4 fit. This also confirms to opener that all four Aces are held. If no fit is found they play the lowest game level no trump available. If responder wishes to sign off after finding that not all aces are held, he likewise bids the lowest game level of no trump. These no trump bids, which are to play, most often come at levels lower than the competition due to the efficiency attained with Spadewood. Larry claimed that he would often be playing 3NT when opponents were trying to remember how to stop in 5NT.
The final contingency: Opener rebids 2NT but responder wants to make a slam try anyway. Responder now asks for Aces by bidding 3 clubs which is like Gerber, but at one level lower. It is well to remember that “Spadewood” supplements Stayman and Transfers and is simply another way for responder to get information when responder has a balanced hand.
Initially I thought this might be some strange home brew, but played it with Larry to accommodate his strong feelings about it. I find that it is very sound and works just the way it was advertised. You get the information you need, most often at one level lower than opponents, and you find more light slams that can be played in suit contracts with 4-4 fits. Like all conventional bids, you have to give up something in exchange. In this case it is 4 suit transfers meaning you will play some minor suit part scores with the no trump hand on the table.
Larry’s favorite bridge topic was “Spadewood”. He only once wrote a definitive comment about the convention and that may be lost to posterity. Out of respect to my friend Larry, I wanted Spadewood to live on and not expire with him. I think Larry would be pleased. Larry was important to me as a friend. As a collateral benefit, he always made my bridge game look better than reality. Larry always read my bridge blog posts with a critical eye. I hope he is reading this one. I will be looking for your comment Larry.

Equal Level Conversion Examples (Part 2)

1. Opening bid is 1 heart. You hold:

KJxx

xx

AQJxxx

x

This is the early example shown by Robert Ewen in 1973. He suggested you try for a spade contract by making a t/o x, since if partner bids clubs you could “convert” to 2 diamonds. Note: When one heart is opened we use ELC with a major minor holding, with the minor having 5+ cards and the major 4 cards. If you had one more club and one less diamond you would bid the same way. If you make an ELC double it also implies shortness in the opening bid suit.

2. If the hand is xx, KJxx, AQJxxx, x (hearts and spades reversed from ex. 1) we could use ELC if the opening bid was one spade, since we could convert to diamonds at the 2 level over 2 clubs. If the opening was one club we could not double on this hand since if Advancer bids 1 spade we could not convert to diamonds at the one level. A “double and bid” with a club opening would mean the big 17+ hcp hand.

3. Opening bid is 1 diamond. You hold:

KQxx

Jxxxx

AQx

8

 Do you really want to overcall a heart? Do you want to use Michaels on a 5-4 hand? I hope not to both questions. Perfect for an ELC t/o x. It neatly solves a problem hand. If Advancer bids clubs we convert to the better major hearts. Advancer surely doesn’t have a 4 card major or we would have heard about it. He may well have a 3 card heart suit. Think positive, on a better day Advancer bids 1 spade! We may be the only pair not to lose the spade suit. If RHO opens 1 club, it’s the same story. Note: If the heart suit were better quality you could overcall 1 heart, but you still risk losing the spade suit if Advancer’s holding is 2 hearts and 4 spades. If the major suit holding is 5-3, it is always better to make the overcall since that holding is not suitable for the ELC double.

4. Opening bid is heart. You hold:

AKxx

xxx

AJ10xx

x

You make a t/o double; responder bids 2 hearts, Advancer bids 3 clubs (maybe 8+ hcps and 5 clubs), pass by opener: Doubler coverts to 3 diamonds. Diamonds will be the best suit we have. If Advancer had 4 spades he would (hopefully) have shown the spades at the 2 level rather than bid the 5 card club suit.

 5. Opening bid is 1 club. You hold:

A10xxx

QJxx

Kx

Ax

Double. If Advancer doesn’t respond in hearts, we bid spades to convert Advancer’s diamond response. Despite the popular belief that you can show both suits by overcalling spades and bidding hearts next, it is surprising how often the heart suit gets lost in traffic. If the opening bid is one diamond instead of a club, it is the same story.

6. Opening bid is 1 spade. You hold:

 xx

AQxx

KQJxx

xx

Double and convert to Diamonds if Advancer bids clubs. Again, we preserve our chance to find the 4-4 heart fit.

7. Here is one for real men (and ladies too!)!  Opening bid is 1 club. You hold:

 AKxx

AKxx

x

xxxx

 or

 AKxx

AKxx

xx

xxx

 Double of course! If partner shows diamonds you convert to hearts. ELC. If Advancer has more spades than he does hearts, he should take a preference to spades. If you trap on these hands you might lose game in one of the majors.

 Here are some Balancing Examples:

8. Opponent opens one spade and there are three passes to you. In the balancing seat you hold:

Axxx

AKQ

K109xx

X

With the club single 1NT is not attractive. Certainly a re-opening bid of 2 diamonds will get votes, but isn’t double the best choice if you play ELC doubles in the balancing seat? If partner bids the expected 2 clubs, we convert to 2 diamonds. If partner bids hearts, we are happy whether he has 4 or 5 card suit. Given the bidding and balancer’s holding, it seems likely that we will find partner with some diamond help.

9. South opens 1 heart and North raises to 2 hearts. All pass to you in the balancing seat. As West you hold:

KJxx

x

KQJxx

xx

The question is not whether to balance, but how best to do so. If you bid 2 diamonds, you will surely lose any spade fit. Better to make an ELC double. Suppose balancer’s partner holds Q10xx,xxxx,xxx,Ax. Then the hand makes an equal number of spades or diamonds.

10. South opens one heart, responder bid 1NT(F). You hold:

AQxx

xxxx

KQxxx

x

Here you are in the pre-balancing seat. You have 21/2 quick tricks and 11 hcps, and 5-4 distribution in suits that have not been bid. A pre-balance is a command performance. If you bid 2 diamonds, you just know that partner will have 4 spades. Make the pre-balance with an ELC double. If partner bids clubs, just convert to 2 diamonds. It's at the same level so you haven’t shown extras

 General Reminder: When you have the big 17+ hand, you can’t make a Double and ELC conversion. You have to make a cue bid or jump in the converting suit. Also, if your “double and bid” action is not ELC, (1s/x/ p/2h/3c) then you do have the big hand.

Equal Level Conversion Doubles (Part 1)

I always wanted to do a post on this subject, but felt it may be too complex for many of my readers. In June’s issue of The Bulletin (Pg. 26) I saw that Larry Cohen made a passing reference to Equal Level Conversion. Since his 2 short paragraphs left much unsaid, I have decided (for better or worse) to put a little meat on the bones. It’s been a while since I have written anything for my advanced readers, so here it is! You will find the endnotes grouped on at the end (duh!) This is a 2 part post, the next post will consist of examples and answers.

As we all know, the “Gold Standard” for take-out doubles is that doubler has support for the other three unbid suits. The only common exception to this is the “double and bid” situation.[1]. Since modern bridge theory supports single level overcalls with hands as good as 17hcps, double and bid action generally shows a hand that has a good 17+ hcps and a re-biddable suit. Since doubler has the best hand at the table, and it is his intention to take a bid over whatever partner’s action might be, it is not important that doubler can’t support partner in one of the unbid suits.

 These combined disciplines have stood the test of time pretty well. They set a sensible standard, promote partnership trust and set the stage for competitive bidding or a good defensive effort with a head start on count and values. Yet, there seems to be a recurring problem with certain two suited hands that are not 5-5. You are sitting in the second seat and see one heart opened on your right. You hold something like AKxx, xxx, AJ10xx, x. What call do you make?

 Most partnerships would overcall 2 diamonds. The problem is that you may catch partner with Qxxx, x, xxx, Axxxx and we miss a good play for game in spades. It is easy to bury a spade suit with this type of hand. Another approach is to overcall the 4 card spade suit[2]. The problem with this is that I like the assurance that partner’s overcalls have 5+ cards in the suit. If you have to question that each time a major suit is overcalled, you have lost valuable hand count information and may miss a 9 card diamond fit in which you could have competed. You could try to trap pass[3], but explain that to partner when the bidding goes 1h/p/3h, and our options are gone.

 There is a way that you can “have your cake and eat it too”, and not have to sweat your way through these awkward holdings. You simply make a take out double (!) and if advancer bids 2 clubs, you bid 2 diamonds. You are going to say, “Wait a minute, I have just shown a hand of 17+ hcps with double and bid. No, not if your partnership understanding is that you can make Equal Level Conversion (“ELC”) take-out doubles.  Under the ELC understanding, the bid of a new suit by doubler is not forcing if it is at the same level as Advancer’s[4] bid. Now doubler can bid 2 diamonds and Advancer will know that it is not forcing and also know that in this sequence (1h/x/p/2c/p/2d), I started with 5 diamond and 4 hearts. On a good day advancer will respond 1 spade over our double and we have found our 8 card spade fit. Even If Advancer bids 1NT (somewhat rare), he has a heart stopper, and surely he must have Qxx of diamonds. We can play it in NT, but without the club stopper, a bail out to 2 diamonds may guarantee the plus score[5].

I need to answer a few quick questions before they are asked:

1. How do you now show the 17+ hand if an ELC double and bid sequence is non-forcing? In the 1h/x/p/2c/p auction you can either cue bid hearts (e.g. 2 hearts) or you can jump in diamonds (e.g. 3 diamonds). Both are a one round force in these auctions.

2. What do you do if opener’s partner (responder) bids 2 hearts and Advancer bids 3 clubs? Bid 3 diamonds, it is still equal level conversion.

3. What if advancer jumps to 3 clubs after a pass by responder? Same answer as question 2.

4. What do you do with 6-4 hands? This is the good part, bid them the same way as 5-4 hands. This overcomes their unsuitability for Michael’s Cue bids.

5. Is the ELC double alertable? No, but you must mark the box for Min. Off-shape T/O in the upper left hand corner of your convention card. Notice that it is not marked in red or blue[6].

6. Is this something new that you are springing on me? No, it has been in the literature a long time. Mr. Robert Ewen (a British bridge writer) commented on the sequence in 1973, although he did not use the term ELC[7]. Max Hardy commented on ELC extensively in his book on bidding 2 suited hands written in 1996[8]. Notwithstanding this exposure, the convention was not used extensively until Eric Rodwell and Jeff Meckstroth added it to their partnership agreement. “Meckwell” refers to their agreement as Minimum Equal Level Conversion, but the principles remain unchanged. Bridge World Standard 2001 seems to indirectly endorse ELC, but they appear to limit its use to the situation where your unsupportable suit is clubs[9]. Many players who use ELC would use it over any one level opener if the hand holding is correct. See examples. in Part 2.

 Here are some general rules to help you spot ELC situations. If the opening bid is minor suit, the two suits must be majors. It the opening bid is a major, the two suits must be a minor and a major. In minor-major situations, the long suit is always the minor suit. In the major-major combination, the holding can be 5-4, 4-5 or even 4-4[10] if the rest of the hand fits ELC. If doubler’s rebid is at a higher level than advancer’s responsive bid, this is not ELC, it shows the traditional “double and bid” hand.
Part 2 of this post will contains several examples of the use of the principle of ELC doubles. These should be very helpful to you in demonstrating the flexibility of ELC and better understanding its use. What can be better than showing distribution and strength, all at the 2 level? As Max Hardy said, “Fits take tricks”. It’s a good thing he was a bridge author and not a poet!

---

[1] I am aware that some partnerships play off shape takeouts where over 1 heart you can double with almost anything as long as you have 4 spades. I leave to each reader to decide if this is good bridge and how you distinguish between real take out doubles and off shape doubles made only to show 4 cards in the opposite major. I am going to ignore it.

[2] This was the suggestion of Mike Lawrence in his Complete Book on Overcalls in Contract Bridge (1979). It would be nice if you could make Mike declarer when you do this!

[3] A respected technique 50 years ago, this flies in the face of modern bridge teachings. With today’s aggressive bidding, opponents will have your underwear up around your ears before the auction gets back to you.

[4] “Advancer” is bridge writers’ terminology for the partner of the take-out doubler. It also applies to the partner of an overcaller.

[5] This decision may be different in match points and IMPs. I think that ELC is equally effective in match points and IMPs, but surely the knock-out player will like it as he will not want to miss that major suit game.

[6] While the double may not be alertable, in fairness to opponents, I would alert doubler’s equal level conversion. It is akin to the situation in 4 suit transfers where a 2NT response to a 1NT opener is conventional and the invitational 2NT is preceded by 2 clubs. You don’t have to alert the 2 club bid (it could be Stayman), but if responder next bids 2NT, you alert it as invitational and possibly no 4 card major.

[7] Doubles for Takeout, Penalties and Profit in Contract Bridge (1973).

[8] Competitive Bidding with Two Suited Hands (1996). Max called it Equal Level Correction. Max used ELC in connection with his preferred 5-4 conventional bid which he refers to as Top and Bottom Cue Bids. See the book for an explanation.

[9] Bridge World 2001 Expert Survey, See sections 307 and 308.

[10] Using ELC with 4-4 major suited hands is rare, since often they will accommodate themselves nicely to traditional take-out doubles. Some players just say, “Stop the music, enuf is enuf". See the examples.

[11] As usual, the author disavows any knowledge of the subject matter of this memo.

Two Wrongs Don 't Make It Right

My wife Alla broke a bone in her foot so I have been the household technician, nurse, cook, chauffer and cat care giver for about 5 weeks. This from a guy who, as my wife so often puts it “does nothing around the house.” If I ever catch up to that woman who said that “Women’s work is never done”, I am going to award her a scholarship to MIT.  

I have often been asked about how many people actually visit my bridge blog. When I started out, I intentionally did not put up a blog counter. Who wants to find out that only your three partners read your stuff, and even they drop off after about 3 months? After all, I was doing it for amusement and to force myself to wade through some of those bridge books that I had stacked up under the bed. Well 5+ years later I now have about 150 posts to the blog and am running out of material. My computer technical skills do not include the techniques to clip and save hand records and drop them into my blog. Consequently, most of my blogs deal with play, defense and bidding commentary and not hand problems.  

Blogspot.com has, from the beginning, been the host for my blog since it is user friendly and free. Someone on the Blogspot staff had too much time on their hands so recently they decided to furnish to blog owners with "in depth" demographics about blog reads, the geographic dispersion of blog readers, graphs upon graphs and detail on which posts were the most popular. With more than a little trepidation I opened the page. Of course I wouldn’t be writing about this if I wasn’t pretty well satisfied. I have surpassed 40,000 reads, and I have readers in most parts of the World except Africa, and the Middle East. Not bad for a Minnesota farm boy whose early card skills and training was limited to Whist on the oil cloth covering the kitchen table. 

 My top five blog reads were in order (i)  Western Cue Bid (ii) Support Doubles Made Simple (iii) Combined Bergen Raises (iv) Super Duper Acceptances and (v) No Trump by the Numbers. Not really what I expected, but readers rule.  

After an extended absence, I played duplicate the other day with my expert partner Jim Bailey. Bobby Goldman in his book vowed that he would never lose match points on the last few boards from lack of concentration, and I have repeated that many times with approval. So on Board 22 I was in second position waiting impatiently for the dealer to do something, actually anything!  

I was admiring my heart suit and thinking about the laundry and drugstore when the dealer finally passed. I had a mental disconnect and pulled out the 1 heart bidding card rather than the 1NT that I intended to bid. Not being sure whether it was a mental or functional error, I did not call the director and decided to gut it out. After a nice “in tempo” pass on my left, Jim now bids three hearts (preemptive raise)! I rolled my eyes upward and passed, thinking there is a bridge God after all. Here are the hands. I am South:

*******T7

*******98762

*******A9

*******8632

Q653*********AJ84

A54**********3

QT72*********J6543

Q7***********AT9

******K92

******KQJT

******K8

******KJ54

I knew that I had to make 3 hearts since other teams would be 1NT/2d/2 hearts/all pass. I am hoping I can play this fast, claim early and fold so Jim will not see that I bid a 4 card major. To make a long story short and painless, I played the hand as poorly as I bid it and Jim did eventually catch up to me..

West (Bob Dewey, a rising intermediate) finds a small diamond lead (the best lead) and I take it with the King in my hand. I play the King of trump taken by Bob's Ace and Bob returns another diamond to force my diamond entry (another good play, who is this guy anyway?).What do you do next? You can make 3 hearts only if you make the right timing decision at this point. Solve the problem before you move on.  

This is not a complicated play problem. It’s pretty straightforward, but since it served as a good object lesson for me, and aggravated Jim a good deal,

I thought it might help some of my novice and intermediate readers. As my partner Jim is fond of saying, “It is basic bridge” (which only helps if you know all the basics and can recall them at will under the gunJ).

When you take the Diamond ace, it appears you may be in the dummy for the last time unless you create a second entry. The only way to do this is to play the spade suit and hope that East has the spade Ace which she does. It doesn’t matter if she takes the Ace of spades or ducks the Ace of spades and permits declarer to win with the King, as long as you get the best defense.

If the King holds you play two rounds of trump and lead a small spade. East will take the second spade and lead the ten of clubs (again best defense). In this case you must cover the ten with the King to regain the lead. Now you ruff your third spade on the board creating that missing entry to lead toward your Jack of clubs. You will ultimately lose a heart, a spade and two clubs making three hearts. If East takes the Ace of spades she must return the ten of clubs with the same result. Put up the King of Clubs, pull trump and lead the 3^rd spade. 

Oh, there is another reason I don’t do play of the hand problems. I am not too good at them and always get a dozen amateur solvers telling me I got it all wrong. If you have another solution against best defense, bring it on!! Comments at tommy@rochester.rr.com

A Vote for Simplicity (from Sweden)

Three years ago I posted a blog entitled "The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Conventions." The first response I got was from Larry Cohen applauding the blog and claiming that he was the first one to use that phrase. We determined that he was right on both counts. This morning I got a blog comment from Johan in Uppsula, Sweden. I reproduce his comment below. It is gratifying to note that my blogs still have life all over the world and that I have at least one convert. In case you missed the original blog, I am also reproducing it.

Am I living the life? Certainly, today I am playing with Dede Titcomb and we get along just fine playing Stayman, Transfers, Negative Doubles, Weak Two's and Blackwood. If we don't do well, we blame it on bad cards!!


Tommy: Thanks for a great article! After having played competitive bridge on a relatively low level for a few years I developed into a serial convention pusher. Have therefore enthusiastically and gradually introduced these excellent (no irony!) conventions in the partnership with my wife. After too many mishaps and a decline in the enjoyment of the game, I have recently realised (oh the pain, the pain) that we need to embark on the road to simplicity. Proper card-play and hand-evaluation skills are so much more important. Remembered your article and reread -thanks for the inspiration to move on. Less is more. / Johan Uppsala Sweden

Monday, November 3, 2008

The Road to Hell is Paved With Good Conventions

Do you own a copy of the bridge book 25 Conventions You Should Know (1999) by Barbara Seagram and Marc Smith? How About the 2003 Sequel 25 More Conventions You Should. Know? I admit to owning both of them, as well as many others. I am proud to say that I can recite all 50 of them in alphabetical, ascending or descending order, and at the same time juggle 3 golf balls. I noticed too late that the title of the Seagram and Smith series was conventions you should “know”, they didn’t say anything about “playing” them. All of this assiduous application of talent failed to lead me to the real secret of winning bridge: understanding the importance of the “Secret Move.”Now the “Secret Move” is not as secret as you might think. It origins have been lost in the convoluted development of the game of bridge, but certainly documented traces of it can be found as early as the year 2000. At the risk of incurring the wrath of the ABTA (American Bridge Teachers Association) I am going to put it on the internet for all my readers to view. In preparation for the secret move you need to gather together all of the convention cards that you currently use with partners, straighten out all the folded corners, put them neatly in a stack with the most complex at the top and…. Are you ready for this…..? (drum roll) the Secret Move is to put them all in the nearest trash can, preferably on garbage day so they cannot be retrieved when you get withdrawal symptoms.Well that may be a little dramatic, but unless you are an expert (self proclaimed does not qualify) or are on the cusp of bridge greatness, your bridge game, the weekly results, your attitude and your enjoyment will definitely improve if you will only simplify your systems and conventions, so give some thought to the Secret Move! Like most everything else that appears on this blog, this is not original thought. I have some pretty good authority that agrees with me.

In a published interview in 2000, Eric Rodwell (49,649.59 master points) commenting on this subject, said:“There is a lot to be said for just plain vanilla “bid-what-you-think-you- can- make” bridge. There are a lot of tactical advantages- not allowing opponents in, not giving them extra information, not giving them extra opportunities to overcall or double. All are big advantages of natural bidding, like 1NT-2NT-3NT. Just in general there are a lot of potential downsides to playing artificial conventions. The main ones are not having thought through the sequences thoroughly enough to see when you are benefiting and when they are necessary.”

In the August 2000 ACBL Bridge Bulletin Zeke Jabbour (29,498.72 master points) said:“What methods you use do not matter. What matters is how well you use them. What systems you play doesn’t matter. What matters is how well you play it. The convention doesn’t matter. What matters is the agreement and how well you understand it. How complicated your methods are doesn’t matter. What matters is how comfortable you are with them.

In the February 2001 ACBL Bridge Bulletin Zia Mahmood (13,665 master points) said:“It is very important to emphasize that except at the very highest levels, it does not matter what you play. Sound bridge and good judgment are enough to win.”

In his October 2008 Newsletter. Larry Cohen (23,328.81 master points) said:“I am a staunch advocate of “less is better.” My observation is that at every level of the game players are using too many conventions. Too often I see players (from beginner to world champion) misusing or forgetting their methods. Everyone would benefit if they would just KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid). If I had to choose 4 conventions, this would be my list: Stayman, Blackwood, Negative Doubles and Weak 2-Bids. If you made me chose 4 more, my list would include Jacoby Transfers, DONT over opponents Opening 1NT, Weak Jump Shifts in competition and 4th Suit forcing to game. I could live happily with those 8.”

Glen Ashton, a Canadian Bridge theorist and editor of Bridge Matters advised:“Select methods that your partnership likes, understands, and remains comfortable with, methods that give your partnership confidence, non- complex methods that come up often and are mostly successful when they do. Methods that are easily practiced, remembered and used. In other words, methods that help you play well and win.

Here I think is the litmus test. If your systems or conventions are causing you to be out of tempo, require that you review conventions and responses on the drive to the bridge club, are subjecting you to that familiar refrain from partner at the end of the auction “failure to alert” or are creating tension in what should be a wonderful afternoon of pleasure, then back off, apply the “Secret Move” and start all over with treatments, systems and conventions that you are very comfortable with.

Yes, it's an old idea, but maybe in 2012 it's still worth reconsideration.