Playing in a Swiss, you’re just above average after 4 rounds. After
lunch, you need at least 2 blitzes if you want to finish honorably.
In the 5th match, you meet a good team that you’ve beaten before. Once
in a KO final, on the final board of a 4 board tie-break, you led a
small heart from Kxx against 6♠. Partner won the ace and came back
heart: one down.
So, on the 1st board of the 5th match, after 2 passes, your LHO,
vulnerable, opens 1♠ with 8 points. His partner bids 2♥, all pass and we score
+200. That should be a good start. That decision by an experienced
player to open 1♠ with 10xxxx in spades, really surprises you. It is
bad bridge, like trying to be too smart. The rest of the match goes
well. You give nothing away on defense. You make a 4♥ with 4 potential losers,
the same experienced player switching to a suit you needed to guess and
then make 460 in 3NT against soft defense.
On the last board, partner plays 4♠ after a 3♥ preempt on his right.
The lead is the ♥K.
RHO overtakes with the Ace, cashes the Queen and
switches to a small club. Declarer plays small, LHO wins the Ace and
plays back a club, RHO following, and declarer wins the King.
How do you play the spades? The only thing that can beat you is a 4-0
split. Can LHO have all 4 of them? He already showed 7 hearts and 3
clubs. If he has 4 spades, he has 14 cards. Impossible then. So you
just have to play Ace of spades. If everyone follows, you claim.
Not taking the bidding and the play of the cards into account (how many
times did we repeat that?), my partner played a spade to the King, went
down in a cold contract and, instead of winning by 5 or 6, we lost by a
similar margin.
That was it for me. I know I am not supposed to do that, but I lost all
interest and just felt like quitting.
The rest of the day, I just pushed cards, trying not to make mistakes,
but not really caring.
In the next to last match, I find myself in 4♠, vul vs not.
LHO leads the ♥Q.
At least 4 losers. With the overcall, the club King should be placed,
that is your only chance. You need to assume that. And you can still
have 2 trump losers. If trumps behave and the club king is with LHO,
you will make 4♠. But when things seem easy, prepare for the worst.
Having lost interest (have I said that before?), I played for a 3-2
trump break and went down. After the match, in the hall, I played and
replayed the hand in my head.
I won the ♥K and
played a spade to the Queen. LHO played small, RHO won the Ace and
played a diamond. I won and played my other diamond. LHO won and played
a second heart. I won the Ace. How should I play?
I need 10 tricks. I can count on 2 hearts, 1 diamond and 2 clubs. So I
need 5 trump tricks. If trumps break, no problem, but... If
trumps are
4-1, RHO should have all 4 trumps, exactly A109x. Will you play a trump
to your 8, losing to the 9 or 10 doubleton offside if trumps are 3-2?
Do you see a better way?
Wandering in the hall, wishing this damn Swiss would be over, the
solution finally dawned on me and I realized I had committed a mortal
sin against beauty. And I realized also I robbed myself of the greatest
pleasure there is: imagine a hand, place the cards in the opponents'
hands, play accordingly and find out, afterwards, you had imagine
exactly the distribution.
I write novels and, like the famous author John Irving (The world
according to Garp, 1980 something; A widow for one year, 2000
something) says: One
must imagine a good story; (…) Personal experience
is overrated, but observation is essential.
Imagination is far better at creating believable stories than real life
experience. Of course, like John Irving says, if a detail is inspired
by real life, it is ok, but it is not necessary.
Bridge is the same: imagination and visualization are the most
important tools.
Do you see the pleasure I missed?
Why not ruff out the diamonds and the hearts? While ruffing the hearts,
LHO cannot over ruff even if he has the trump 10. With this plan, the
spade break is irrelevant. Plan the play exactly. In dummy with the H
Ace, you can play a diamond and ruff, 5th trick. Now play a club to the
Queen, 6th trick. Now a heart ruffed, 7th trick. Another club to the
Ace, 8th trick. The 4th heart from dummy will see you home.
If RHO ruffs, you just discard your losing club and claim.
If he discards, you ruff low and play KJ of spades, making 4.
Isn’t that beautiful?
My play, sloppy and careless, result of my loss of interest, was really
a sin against beauty.
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Friday, October 25, 2013
A lead is worth... a thousand words!
You have:
And you hear the following auction:
Over 4♠, you toy with the idea of bidding 5 ♥ but you have read The Book (Law of Total Tricks) and you pass in tempo. You try nevertheless to remember what Larry Cohen says about double fits (2♠ shows hearts and clubs) and the following adjustments to the LAW.
While you are busy googling, your partner leads the 6 of hearts.
On the heart 10 from dummy, you win the Ace, declarer playing the ♥7.
How do you continue?
First, you have to think.
How can you know what he has?
You don't play any card yet.
You could play the Ace of clubs in order to see what will happen, but that would not be enough to set the contract, even if your partner ruffs diamond. After the heart lead, the only entry back to your hand is the club Ace.
To defeat this contract, you have to play diamond for a ruff, asking for a club return and play a second diamond, for one down.
It's so tough! How can you know for sure?
Let's review from the start.
You and your partner lead 3rd from even, low from odd. Your partner led the 6 of hearts, dummy played the 10 and declarer the 7. There, everything is before your eyes... and you don't see anything.
Look again: partner led the 6 of hearts (3rd from even, low from odd), dummy played the 10 and declarer the 7.
You got it? No? Are you blind? Ask yourself: what are partner's hearts ? The King, and then?
You and dummy had AQJ10982 and declarer played the 7.
What's left ? Under the 10, you never look, you say? Why do you play bridge then?
So I will tell you. Partner has K6543.
So? you ask again, blind now by choice or by laziness.
Look again: K6543. With these cards, partner has led the 6, and you normally lead low from an odd number. She led the 6. Why the 6? She led 2nd, and not 5th. Why?
If partner led 2nd and not 5th, she wanted to tell you something. The heart 6 is an abnormal lead, absolutely contrary to your understanding. This strange play form partner is not a mistake, she did not choose the 6 at random. She is trying to tell you something, she is doing all she can to transmit a message within the limits of the bridge language. The heart 6 tells you: Look and look again, think, WAKE UP!
This heart 6 confirms declarer's distribution: 5152. The heart 6 says: Come back diamond, I will ruff. Why diamond? Because, apart from the King, the heart 6 is the highest card possible she could play from this holding to ask for a diamond return. You can now almost hear your partner's voice, applying all the force of her mind, trying to communicate with your mind, repeating in her head: diamond, diamond, play a diamond, play a diamond.
While all this is going on, you didn't look at your partner and she didn't try to influence you by shifting on her seat or by sighing. You are bridge players and you practice active ethics. The heart 6 uses a legal way to tell you something and you finally got the message.
Your hand again:
So you decide to return diamond. Which diamond? The 2, obviously, asking for a club return.
Trembling, you put the diamond 2 on the table. Declarer plays small. Your partner pulls out a card, keeps it hovering over the table, without showing it yet. Is she a sadist?
No, you know her: upon winning a trick, she always does that. You now know that you found the perfect card to play.
Did declarer follow your thoughts? Is he aware of what is going to happen to him?
When the small spade from partner appears on the table, ruffing the diamond, declarer literally jumps on his seat. Your partner comes back a club, you win the Ace and play a second diamond. Declarer will go down 2, partner having also the Ace of spades.
Opening the traveling sheet, poor declarer shakes his head. He is the only one to go down :
"It’s not my fault. You saw this defence. I couldn't do anything, it's not my fault."
That’s bridge. Each and every card has a meaning. You have to look, think, analyse, decipher, in order to see if partner is sending you message. If there is no message, it is still a message, partner is saying: Nothing useful to say, nothing urgent to do, just play normally.
But if the lead is abnormal, really out of your understandings, partner is trying to tell you something. It is your job to look, look and look again, to think, think and think again, to count, count and count again. In every situation at bridge, it is your job to take your time.
And this article makes 1000 words.
And you hear the following auction:
Over 4♠, you toy with the idea of bidding 5 ♥ but you have read The Book (Law of Total Tricks) and you pass in tempo. You try nevertheless to remember what Larry Cohen says about double fits (2♠ shows hearts and clubs) and the following adjustments to the LAW.
While you are busy googling, your partner leads the 6 of hearts.
On the heart 10 from dummy, you win the Ace, declarer playing the ♥7.
How do you continue?
First, you have to think.
- Your partner guarantees at least 5 hearts and 5 clubs, so declarer has 5-6 spades, 1 heart, 1-2 clubs and so... 4-5 diamonds.
- If declarer has 5 spades, 1 heart and 2 clubs, he has 5 diamonds and your partner will ruff the diamond return.
How can you know what he has?
You don't play any card yet.
You could play the Ace of clubs in order to see what will happen, but that would not be enough to set the contract, even if your partner ruffs diamond. After the heart lead, the only entry back to your hand is the club Ace.
To defeat this contract, you have to play diamond for a ruff, asking for a club return and play a second diamond, for one down.
It's so tough! How can you know for sure?
Let's review from the start.
You and your partner lead 3rd from even, low from odd. Your partner led the 6 of hearts, dummy played the 10 and declarer the 7. There, everything is before your eyes... and you don't see anything.
Look again: partner led the 6 of hearts (3rd from even, low from odd), dummy played the 10 and declarer the 7.
You got it? No? Are you blind? Ask yourself: what are partner's hearts ? The King, and then?
You and dummy had AQJ10982 and declarer played the 7.
What's left ? Under the 10, you never look, you say? Why do you play bridge then?
So I will tell you. Partner has K6543.
So? you ask again, blind now by choice or by laziness.
Look again: K6543. With these cards, partner has led the 6, and you normally lead low from an odd number. She led the 6. Why the 6? She led 2nd, and not 5th. Why?
If partner led 2nd and not 5th, she wanted to tell you something. The heart 6 is an abnormal lead, absolutely contrary to your understanding. This strange play form partner is not a mistake, she did not choose the 6 at random. She is trying to tell you something, she is doing all she can to transmit a message within the limits of the bridge language. The heart 6 tells you: Look and look again, think, WAKE UP!
This heart 6 confirms declarer's distribution: 5152. The heart 6 says: Come back diamond, I will ruff. Why diamond? Because, apart from the King, the heart 6 is the highest card possible she could play from this holding to ask for a diamond return. You can now almost hear your partner's voice, applying all the force of her mind, trying to communicate with your mind, repeating in her head: diamond, diamond, play a diamond, play a diamond.
While all this is going on, you didn't look at your partner and she didn't try to influence you by shifting on her seat or by sighing. You are bridge players and you practice active ethics. The heart 6 uses a legal way to tell you something and you finally got the message.
Your hand again:
So you decide to return diamond. Which diamond? The 2, obviously, asking for a club return.
Trembling, you put the diamond 2 on the table. Declarer plays small. Your partner pulls out a card, keeps it hovering over the table, without showing it yet. Is she a sadist?
No, you know her: upon winning a trick, she always does that. You now know that you found the perfect card to play.
Did declarer follow your thoughts? Is he aware of what is going to happen to him?
When the small spade from partner appears on the table, ruffing the diamond, declarer literally jumps on his seat. Your partner comes back a club, you win the Ace and play a second diamond. Declarer will go down 2, partner having also the Ace of spades.
Opening the traveling sheet, poor declarer shakes his head. He is the only one to go down :
"It’s not my fault. You saw this defence. I couldn't do anything, it's not my fault."
That’s bridge. Each and every card has a meaning. You have to look, think, analyse, decipher, in order to see if partner is sending you message. If there is no message, it is still a message, partner is saying: Nothing useful to say, nothing urgent to do, just play normally.
But if the lead is abnormal, really out of your understandings, partner is trying to tell you something. It is your job to look, look and look again, to think, think and think again, to count, count and count again. In every situation at bridge, it is your job to take your time.
And this article makes 1000 words.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
La comédie humaine
The French novelist Honoré de Balzac has enchanted many years of my
life: just read Le Père
Goriot, Illusions perdues, Splendeurs et
misères des courtisanes, La Duchesse de Langeais, César Birotteau, Le
Cousin Pons, La Cousine Bette, etc., all astonishing
works, riveting
novels, worth reading over and over again.
I hear you, I hear you: "Balzac? Not for me! Never ending descriptions, pages and pages of details, I would give up after 30 pages..."
You don't know it yet, but you're with me.
If you give up after 30 pages, isn't it like leaving the bridge table while the cards are being shuffled and dealt? Will you quit bridge because shuffling takes too much time? No. Shuffling the cards is the same thing as reading the first 30 pages of a novel by Balzac.
An expert on Balzac once compared all those descriptions and all those minute details to a spring that you slowly rewind. The spring gets tighter and tighter, and when it gets to the maximum tension, you let go and the reaction just hits you, unavoidable result of an inner necessity.
Bridge is the same: once the cards are shuffled and dealt, there is no more luck. Let us be clear: there is no more luck because the distribution of the cards is now fixed, petrified, and unchangeable.
On any given hand, the good player, anxious for order and harmony, respectful of the environment, will look for this primordial order and try to imagine it.
He will build a hypothesis that will let him make his contract without touching anything, without moving things, without making noise, without even scratching the surface of things. Advocate of ecology, humble before the universe, the good player is like the palaeontologist who, upon discovering the smallest hint of a dinosaur, takes out his little brush and sets about to delicately dust off this huge piece. With utter patience, love and persistence, he dusts, brooms, polishes, washes and reveals the original beauty of the entire structure.
On the other hand, the bad player believes that there is luck, not only during shuffling, but also during play. His postulate is then crystal clear: cards move around during the play. And his experience proves it, day after day: his finesses always fail, he often goes down in cold contracts, gets nailed for 800 and sees the opponents pick up his stiff king. "I'm never lucky," you you hear him complaining to his partner.
In fact, the bad player, by playing without thinking, without counting, without imagining, reintroduces luck where there was none no more. He "modifies" the event, like they say in modern science. His absence of plan, his incoherence, smashes the primordial order, destroys the primary structure that had nothing left to do with luck. It is not surprising that, under these circumstances, the Kings, Queens and Aces seem to change places: the bad player creates anarchy.
By the way, most recent bridge softwares imitate this disorder created by a bad play. With these bridge playing programs, if you don't make the right play, the cards really change places, strongly suggesting the existence of an inner order, of a primordial structure, of an original "necessity", unique and unchangeable, that you need to discover.
You are in 5♣, after LHO overcalled 1♥, raised to 2♥ by RHO.
The lead is a small heart.
First question: where are all those hearts? The opponents, with ten of them, were quite tame in the bidding. You call the 10 from dummy, East plays the Jack. What do you know? East probably has AJ of hearts (West did not underlead his Ace).
How many hearts has East? Probably 4. With 5, he would have bid more. West thus has 6 hearts to the King and East has AJxx.
Where is the Ace of diamonds? Again, take out your little brush and continue your dusting: with AJxx in hearts and the Ace of diamond, East would probably have found a cue-bid. Therefore, the Ace of diamond is probably with West.
After ruffing the first heart (did you see far or did you suffer from myopia?), you play a diamond, West plays low and, backing your brooming and dusting, you go up with the King which holds. You play back a diamond and East wins with the Queen.
East thus has AJxx in hearts and Qx in diamonds; West has Kxxxxx in hearts and Axx in diamonds, you know 9 of his cards.
One question immediately jumps out: why did West, with 6 hearts to the King, a raise from his partner and 3 diamonds to the Ace, give up so early? Which weakness has his hand to make him decide to pass?
With a singleton somewhere, he might have bid more. Your little palaeontologist's broom goes back to work and you extrapolate that he probably has 2 spades and 2 clubs. East plays back a heart and you ruff.
You can consider two lines of play: diamonds or spades.
Can you establish dummy's diamonds? First, you have to go to dummy in order to ruff one diamond, and then you have to go back to dummy to enjoy those diamonds; where are your two entries? The first entry could be the 7 of clubs (did you see far or did you suffer from myopia back there? Did you ruff with the 2 and 4 or with the 8 and 9?), placing the Queen with West, and the second entry is the King of clubs (with clubs 2-2).
Let's examine the spades now. Where is the spade King? Probably not with East; that would give him 10 points and, with 4 trumps AJxx, he probably would have made a cue-bid. You are thus practically sure that West has the spade King. And since clubs have to be 2-2 to make your contract (you have to ruff one spade in dummy and then pick up the trumps), West has to be 2632; if you play Ace of spades and another spade, the King will fall and you still will be able to ruff your losing spade in dummy (even if West switches to a trump) and pick up the trumps.
The East-West dinosaurs should therefore look like this:
You play Ace of spades, spade. Like you had visualised, West's doubleton King wins and you make 5C.
At the heart of Le Père Goriot and of La Comédie humaine, we find Vautrin's famous speech (that you did not read because you gave up during the intro) to Rastignac, the young man recently arrived in Paris.
In this piece, Vautrin explains life in society, the lies, the intrigues, the betrayals, the me-myself-and-I rule: "There are no principles, says Vautrin, there are only events; there are no laws, only circumstances."
The superior man is the one who "follows events and circumstances in order to guide them".
The superior bridge player, profoundly political, accepts reality as it is and tries to take advantage of it.
The superior player does not believe in luck, nor in error.
Luck is the science of the bad player, error is the excuse of the incompetent.
The superior player hates mistakes more than he likes luck.
Luck can defeat him, but he believes he will never lose because of a mistake.
In the end, the superior player, emulating gods, plays in order to marvel at his own perfection.
Junkie of the intelligence, the superior player plays to be able to say, like Paul Valéry:
"Day after day, I enjoy the power of my own brain."
I hear you, I hear you: "Balzac? Not for me! Never ending descriptions, pages and pages of details, I would give up after 30 pages..."
You don't know it yet, but you're with me.
If you give up after 30 pages, isn't it like leaving the bridge table while the cards are being shuffled and dealt? Will you quit bridge because shuffling takes too much time? No. Shuffling the cards is the same thing as reading the first 30 pages of a novel by Balzac.
An expert on Balzac once compared all those descriptions and all those minute details to a spring that you slowly rewind. The spring gets tighter and tighter, and when it gets to the maximum tension, you let go and the reaction just hits you, unavoidable result of an inner necessity.
Bridge is the same: once the cards are shuffled and dealt, there is no more luck. Let us be clear: there is no more luck because the distribution of the cards is now fixed, petrified, and unchangeable.
On any given hand, the good player, anxious for order and harmony, respectful of the environment, will look for this primordial order and try to imagine it.
He will build a hypothesis that will let him make his contract without touching anything, without moving things, without making noise, without even scratching the surface of things. Advocate of ecology, humble before the universe, the good player is like the palaeontologist who, upon discovering the smallest hint of a dinosaur, takes out his little brush and sets about to delicately dust off this huge piece. With utter patience, love and persistence, he dusts, brooms, polishes, washes and reveals the original beauty of the entire structure.
On the other hand, the bad player believes that there is luck, not only during shuffling, but also during play. His postulate is then crystal clear: cards move around during the play. And his experience proves it, day after day: his finesses always fail, he often goes down in cold contracts, gets nailed for 800 and sees the opponents pick up his stiff king. "I'm never lucky," you you hear him complaining to his partner.
In fact, the bad player, by playing without thinking, without counting, without imagining, reintroduces luck where there was none no more. He "modifies" the event, like they say in modern science. His absence of plan, his incoherence, smashes the primordial order, destroys the primary structure that had nothing left to do with luck. It is not surprising that, under these circumstances, the Kings, Queens and Aces seem to change places: the bad player creates anarchy.
By the way, most recent bridge softwares imitate this disorder created by a bad play. With these bridge playing programs, if you don't make the right play, the cards really change places, strongly suggesting the existence of an inner order, of a primordial structure, of an original "necessity", unique and unchangeable, that you need to discover.
You are in 5♣, after LHO overcalled 1♥, raised to 2♥ by RHO.
The lead is a small heart.
First question: where are all those hearts? The opponents, with ten of them, were quite tame in the bidding. You call the 10 from dummy, East plays the Jack. What do you know? East probably has AJ of hearts (West did not underlead his Ace).
How many hearts has East? Probably 4. With 5, he would have bid more. West thus has 6 hearts to the King and East has AJxx.
Where is the Ace of diamonds? Again, take out your little brush and continue your dusting: with AJxx in hearts and the Ace of diamond, East would probably have found a cue-bid. Therefore, the Ace of diamond is probably with West.
After ruffing the first heart (did you see far or did you suffer from myopia?), you play a diamond, West plays low and, backing your brooming and dusting, you go up with the King which holds. You play back a diamond and East wins with the Queen.
East thus has AJxx in hearts and Qx in diamonds; West has Kxxxxx in hearts and Axx in diamonds, you know 9 of his cards.
One question immediately jumps out: why did West, with 6 hearts to the King, a raise from his partner and 3 diamonds to the Ace, give up so early? Which weakness has his hand to make him decide to pass?
With a singleton somewhere, he might have bid more. Your little palaeontologist's broom goes back to work and you extrapolate that he probably has 2 spades and 2 clubs. East plays back a heart and you ruff.
You can consider two lines of play: diamonds or spades.
Can you establish dummy's diamonds? First, you have to go to dummy in order to ruff one diamond, and then you have to go back to dummy to enjoy those diamonds; where are your two entries? The first entry could be the 7 of clubs (did you see far or did you suffer from myopia back there? Did you ruff with the 2 and 4 or with the 8 and 9?), placing the Queen with West, and the second entry is the King of clubs (with clubs 2-2).
Let's examine the spades now. Where is the spade King? Probably not with East; that would give him 10 points and, with 4 trumps AJxx, he probably would have made a cue-bid. You are thus practically sure that West has the spade King. And since clubs have to be 2-2 to make your contract (you have to ruff one spade in dummy and then pick up the trumps), West has to be 2632; if you play Ace of spades and another spade, the King will fall and you still will be able to ruff your losing spade in dummy (even if West switches to a trump) and pick up the trumps.
The East-West dinosaurs should therefore look like this:
You play Ace of spades, spade. Like you had visualised, West's doubleton King wins and you make 5C.
At the heart of Le Père Goriot and of La Comédie humaine, we find Vautrin's famous speech (that you did not read because you gave up during the intro) to Rastignac, the young man recently arrived in Paris.
In this piece, Vautrin explains life in society, the lies, the intrigues, the betrayals, the me-myself-and-I rule: "There are no principles, says Vautrin, there are only events; there are no laws, only circumstances."
The superior man is the one who "follows events and circumstances in order to guide them".
The superior bridge player, profoundly political, accepts reality as it is and tries to take advantage of it.
The superior player does not believe in luck, nor in error.
Luck is the science of the bad player, error is the excuse of the incompetent.
The superior player hates mistakes more than he likes luck.
Luck can defeat him, but he believes he will never lose because of a mistake.
In the end, the superior player, emulating gods, plays in order to marvel at his own perfection.
Junkie of the intelligence, the superior player plays to be able to say, like Paul Valéry:
"Day after day, I enjoy the power of my own brain."
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
A Diamond Is Forever
I used to be
a chess player and once qualified for the Canadian Chess Championship
by correspondence. I worked my brains out for more than a
year, 2 or 3 hours a day, in order to win the qualification.
When I finally won, I discovered bridge and I just quit chess, never to
play chess again.
What is the difference between chess and bridge?
I don’t want to offend chess players and fans, but I would say chess is a children's game, and I don't mean that in a negative way. It is easy to understand: at chess, you play alone, you have one opponent and you see all the pieces all the time.
At bridge, you have one partner and 2 opponents (some would say that makes 3 opponents, but let's not digress). In the bidding, you see only 13 cards out of 52 and, during the play, you see only 26 cards out of 52.
At chess, there are 32 pieces and you see them all the time. At chess, if neither player makes a mistake, the game will end with a draw. If player A makes a mistake and player B sees it, player A will lose. Sometimes, player A doesn't know he made mistake. He will realise it on the next move, or 5 or 6 moves later.
Bobby Fischer, still in his teens, once playing the American champion, started a combination (a series of forced moves including maybe a sacrifice of one or even 2 pieces in order to mate or to gain a decisive advantage) so deep that the commentators in the other room, not understanding the complexity of the combination, explained to the audience that he was losing the game. At the same time, the American champion, suddenly "seeing" what was happening, resigned.
At bridge, sometimes, a defender doesn't make a mistake, but he still loses, when the declarer submits him to a squeeze for example. Other times, the defender makes a mistake, and the declarer can succeed if he can "see" all the pieces and execute the combination in perfect order.
In the 1st match of the Zonal Teams, opponents were silent and you play 6♣, LHO leading a middle heart.
You play low, RHO wins the Jack and plays back a club. Oops!!
Maybe he should have played back a diamond but you have bid diamonds at some point, and maybe that deterred him from playing that suit. Now if spades break 4-3, you will make 12 tricks, but you have to see deeper in the hand.
You win the club and play 3 more clubs, LHO pitching a heart on the 4th club. You play a spade to the Ace, then the King (on which you pitch a diamond), RHO following with the 9 and the Jack. You then play a small spade (the mistake is to play a third top spade, effectively squeezing yourself), RHO pitches a heart, and you ruff.
Now the position is:
Now you play the 9 of clubs. LHO cannot let a spade go, so he pitches a diamond. You pitch the heart Queen from dummy (!!), not a spade, in order to keep the pressure on West; RHO has to keep the hearts, so he pitches a diamond also.
Now we have reached:
Now a heart to the Ace (the real Vienna coup, creating a winner in East's hand and a menace with the heart 10 in declarer's hand), LHO has to keep both spades, so he pitches another diamond. Now we have:
Next you play the spade Queen from dummy, RHO has to keep the heart King, so he pitches a diamond. You pitch the now useless heart, LHO (immaterial now) follows. Finally, at trick 12, the Jack of diamonds to the Ace collects the Queen from East and the King from West, and the 13th trick (your 12th) is the diamond 2.
I don't know what name or names we can give to this sequence of plays, successive or double or compound or criss-cross or any other exotic squeeze name, but I do know one thing: to be able to foresee that kind of play while seeing only 26 cards out of 52, and then to be able to conduct it till the end is the most exhilarating experience, and it is the reason why I quit chess for bridge.
Winning the 13th trick with the diamond 2, with the opponents unable to do anything about it, this is why I will play bridge... forever.
What is the difference between chess and bridge?
I don’t want to offend chess players and fans, but I would say chess is a children's game, and I don't mean that in a negative way. It is easy to understand: at chess, you play alone, you have one opponent and you see all the pieces all the time.
At bridge, you have one partner and 2 opponents (some would say that makes 3 opponents, but let's not digress). In the bidding, you see only 13 cards out of 52 and, during the play, you see only 26 cards out of 52.
At chess, there are 32 pieces and you see them all the time. At chess, if neither player makes a mistake, the game will end with a draw. If player A makes a mistake and player B sees it, player A will lose. Sometimes, player A doesn't know he made mistake. He will realise it on the next move, or 5 or 6 moves later.
Bobby Fischer, still in his teens, once playing the American champion, started a combination (a series of forced moves including maybe a sacrifice of one or even 2 pieces in order to mate or to gain a decisive advantage) so deep that the commentators in the other room, not understanding the complexity of the combination, explained to the audience that he was losing the game. At the same time, the American champion, suddenly "seeing" what was happening, resigned.
At bridge, sometimes, a defender doesn't make a mistake, but he still loses, when the declarer submits him to a squeeze for example. Other times, the defender makes a mistake, and the declarer can succeed if he can "see" all the pieces and execute the combination in perfect order.
In the 1st match of the Zonal Teams, opponents were silent and you play 6♣, LHO leading a middle heart.
You play low, RHO wins the Jack and plays back a club. Oops!!
Maybe he should have played back a diamond but you have bid diamonds at some point, and maybe that deterred him from playing that suit. Now if spades break 4-3, you will make 12 tricks, but you have to see deeper in the hand.
You win the club and play 3 more clubs, LHO pitching a heart on the 4th club. You play a spade to the Ace, then the King (on which you pitch a diamond), RHO following with the 9 and the Jack. You then play a small spade (the mistake is to play a third top spade, effectively squeezing yourself), RHO pitches a heart, and you ruff.
Now the position is:
Now you play the 9 of clubs. LHO cannot let a spade go, so he pitches a diamond. You pitch the heart Queen from dummy (!!), not a spade, in order to keep the pressure on West; RHO has to keep the hearts, so he pitches a diamond also.
Now we have reached:
Now a heart to the Ace (the real Vienna coup, creating a winner in East's hand and a menace with the heart 10 in declarer's hand), LHO has to keep both spades, so he pitches another diamond. Now we have:
Next you play the spade Queen from dummy, RHO has to keep the heart King, so he pitches a diamond. You pitch the now useless heart, LHO (immaterial now) follows. Finally, at trick 12, the Jack of diamonds to the Ace collects the Queen from East and the King from West, and the 13th trick (your 12th) is the diamond 2.
I don't know what name or names we can give to this sequence of plays, successive or double or compound or criss-cross or any other exotic squeeze name, but I do know one thing: to be able to foresee that kind of play while seeing only 26 cards out of 52, and then to be able to conduct it till the end is the most exhilarating experience, and it is the reason why I quit chess for bridge.
Winning the 13th trick with the diamond 2, with the opponents unable to do anything about it, this is why I will play bridge... forever.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Between the Thumb and the Index
The exercise is routine, and the actions always the same, that lead
each time to this recognizable and desired condition: your middle and
third fingers placed on top of the plastic case, the thumb slips under
the 13 cards captive of their thin sheath, the index puts pressure on
the top of the pack, and the index finger and the thumb, in perfect
harmony, in two equal and successive tractions, draw the cards of the
first board.
The opposable thumb, what a wonder! Has human being been created so they can easily draw cards from boards and play bridge?
At the same time you access this state, desired, anticipated, each time welcomed, this peace, this silence in your soul and your mind, this seriousness similar to that of children playing a game, or adults making love, this gravity before experiencing a deep pleasure.
You hear nothing, a protective bubble surrounds you and protects you from the world and its hype, while you place your 13 cards in colors, alternating red and black (but not necessarily spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs), the highest card on the left and the others down to the right.
You count your points at the same time, quickly, without going into details, and your distribution in the same way.
Once the cards are placed (how many hundreds of thousands of times have you repeated the same gestures for so many years?), you close your cards, then reopen them, deliberately, allowing the same regular intervals between them.
This time, you count your points accurately, make a provisional statement of your losers and take note of your distribution. Then, cards placed in a fan shape, held gently at the base of the fan between the thumb and the index finger of the left hand, you cross your right leg over the left and you wait for the beginning of the auction.
In anticipation, you look around a bit, who is and who is not there, but this panoramic traveling doesn’t distract you. It is one of those rituals immutable, inevitable, these gestures repeated at the beginning of each session, that carry you... elsewhere.
What is this place where you find yourself, because you're really in a place, but not palpable, non-localizable? You can talk to opponents, make jokes, talk with your partner, but you never leave this place, this space outside of time that you find each time you begin a bridge session.
At the beginning of the session, the gods of the bridge send you a 3NT hand, only to see if you are awake. The lead is a small spade. The view of dummy immediately brings a smile to your lips.
You immediately recognize the theme. You score +430 and notice that, played from your side, the contract will surely fail if declarer is not fully awake. You know them, they won’t plan ahead and will probably go down.
A bit later, you again play 3NT
The lead is the 9 of hearts. 7 sure tricks. Where can you find the 2 others?
In spades maybe, or with the diamond finesse. But you don't want to commit yourself too early. When you don’t know how to play a hand, it is sometimes indicated to let the opponents play for you. Here, you just have to cover the 9 of hearts with the Jack, and East will be in.
East wins with the Queen and thinks for a long time. He can't play back a heart nor a diamond nor a spade: he will each time give you a trick. He should then play a club, dummy's weakness. But he surprises you a lot when he plays back a spade! Why not a club?
You duck and dummy's 9 wins the trick. You then play club yourself and East plays the Queen: is she singleton? Maybe that is the reason East didn't play a club at the trick before. You duck that club Queen. East insists at spades and you win in hand.
Something tells you not to play a diamond and you have learned to listen to your instincts when you are in the zone. And your instincts tell you to beware of those diamonds, to avoid this inviting finesse, too easy in fact.
Maybe East had a stiff club Queen? Maybe he has a 4441 hand. You play the club ace to see what will happen: East plays the King. You thank him silently, you cash the club Jack, discarding a diamond from dummy, East doing the same.
The original hands were maybe like this:
And we are now here:
You now play the spade ace, all following. Spades were then 3-3.
You now play a heart to the Ace, all following. On the spade Queen, East pitches a diamond. You discard a club, West doing the same as you. King of hearts and a heart now endplay East, West discarding another club.
The position is now:
East, endplayed for the 3rd and last time, has to play a diamond, giving you 2 tricks in dummy and +430. Looking at the cards, you notice that the diamond king was with East. You were right then to resist the diamond finesse. And this discovery augments your euphoria. If the king had been under AQ, you would have been disappointed, it would have been to easy a play, accessible to all those finesse maniacs.
You pick up your cards, 10 vertical and 3 horizontal, you replace them in their original position and hold them in your right hand, as usual and always in the same manner: thumb towards you, index on the left side of the pack, 4th finger on the right, middle and 3rd finger holding the cards. When you approach your hand from the board, the 4th finger leaves the cards and sticks in air (like an English lady having tea at Harrod's), you put the 3rd finger on the board, the index applies some pressure on the middle of the pack so it is easier to slide the cards in the board. Once the front end of the pack is introduced in the slim casing, the index stays on top of the pack and the thumbs pushes the cards into the casing.
This ritual after, always the same, responds to the ritual before and maintains you in this special state.
You get up from the table, without effort, like if you were elsewhere. In fact, you are elsewhere, you are in this state of grace, this seventh heaven reserved to bridge players: this diamond King offside has justified your line of play and you know this is the reason why you play bridge, for this elation of the mind, this ecstasy of the intelligence, when you have resisted the easy play, when you resisted to laziness, when you have courageously counted, counted and counted.
You don't look at the traveling sheet, it is without interest really. You walk toward the next table, as light as your convention card... that you hold between the thumb and the index.
The opposable thumb, what a wonder! Has human being been created so they can easily draw cards from boards and play bridge?
At the same time you access this state, desired, anticipated, each time welcomed, this peace, this silence in your soul and your mind, this seriousness similar to that of children playing a game, or adults making love, this gravity before experiencing a deep pleasure.
You hear nothing, a protective bubble surrounds you and protects you from the world and its hype, while you place your 13 cards in colors, alternating red and black (but not necessarily spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs), the highest card on the left and the others down to the right.
You count your points at the same time, quickly, without going into details, and your distribution in the same way.
Once the cards are placed (how many hundreds of thousands of times have you repeated the same gestures for so many years?), you close your cards, then reopen them, deliberately, allowing the same regular intervals between them.
This time, you count your points accurately, make a provisional statement of your losers and take note of your distribution. Then, cards placed in a fan shape, held gently at the base of the fan between the thumb and the index finger of the left hand, you cross your right leg over the left and you wait for the beginning of the auction.
In anticipation, you look around a bit, who is and who is not there, but this panoramic traveling doesn’t distract you. It is one of those rituals immutable, inevitable, these gestures repeated at the beginning of each session, that carry you... elsewhere.
What is this place where you find yourself, because you're really in a place, but not palpable, non-localizable? You can talk to opponents, make jokes, talk with your partner, but you never leave this place, this space outside of time that you find each time you begin a bridge session.
At the beginning of the session, the gods of the bridge send you a 3NT hand, only to see if you are awake. The lead is a small spade. The view of dummy immediately brings a smile to your lips.
You immediately recognize the theme. You score +430 and notice that, played from your side, the contract will surely fail if declarer is not fully awake. You know them, they won’t plan ahead and will probably go down.
A bit later, you again play 3NT
The lead is the 9 of hearts. 7 sure tricks. Where can you find the 2 others?
In spades maybe, or with the diamond finesse. But you don't want to commit yourself too early. When you don’t know how to play a hand, it is sometimes indicated to let the opponents play for you. Here, you just have to cover the 9 of hearts with the Jack, and East will be in.
East wins with the Queen and thinks for a long time. He can't play back a heart nor a diamond nor a spade: he will each time give you a trick. He should then play a club, dummy's weakness. But he surprises you a lot when he plays back a spade! Why not a club?
You duck and dummy's 9 wins the trick. You then play club yourself and East plays the Queen: is she singleton? Maybe that is the reason East didn't play a club at the trick before. You duck that club Queen. East insists at spades and you win in hand.
Something tells you not to play a diamond and you have learned to listen to your instincts when you are in the zone. And your instincts tell you to beware of those diamonds, to avoid this inviting finesse, too easy in fact.
Maybe East had a stiff club Queen? Maybe he has a 4441 hand. You play the club ace to see what will happen: East plays the King. You thank him silently, you cash the club Jack, discarding a diamond from dummy, East doing the same.
The original hands were maybe like this:
And we are now here:
You now play the spade ace, all following. Spades were then 3-3.
You now play a heart to the Ace, all following. On the spade Queen, East pitches a diamond. You discard a club, West doing the same as you. King of hearts and a heart now endplay East, West discarding another club.
The position is now:
East, endplayed for the 3rd and last time, has to play a diamond, giving you 2 tricks in dummy and +430. Looking at the cards, you notice that the diamond king was with East. You were right then to resist the diamond finesse. And this discovery augments your euphoria. If the king had been under AQ, you would have been disappointed, it would have been to easy a play, accessible to all those finesse maniacs.
You pick up your cards, 10 vertical and 3 horizontal, you replace them in their original position and hold them in your right hand, as usual and always in the same manner: thumb towards you, index on the left side of the pack, 4th finger on the right, middle and 3rd finger holding the cards. When you approach your hand from the board, the 4th finger leaves the cards and sticks in air (like an English lady having tea at Harrod's), you put the 3rd finger on the board, the index applies some pressure on the middle of the pack so it is easier to slide the cards in the board. Once the front end of the pack is introduced in the slim casing, the index stays on top of the pack and the thumbs pushes the cards into the casing.
This ritual after, always the same, responds to the ritual before and maintains you in this special state.
You get up from the table, without effort, like if you were elsewhere. In fact, you are elsewhere, you are in this state of grace, this seventh heaven reserved to bridge players: this diamond King offside has justified your line of play and you know this is the reason why you play bridge, for this elation of the mind, this ecstasy of the intelligence, when you have resisted the easy play, when you resisted to laziness, when you have courageously counted, counted and counted.
You don't look at the traveling sheet, it is without interest really. You walk toward the next table, as light as your convention card... that you hold between the thumb and the index.
Monday, October 21, 2013
Never lie, didn't your mother tell you?
Partner opens 1♠ and you have:
What is your bid?
If you play pure Jacoby 2NT, you can't, you don’t have 4 trumps.
If you play 2/1, can you really bid 2♦ on that suit? Maybe you can, but our style is a good 5-card suit, a source of tricks, not Jxxxx for example. The only exception over 1♠ would be if the suit was hearts.
As for those who would bid 2♣ just to create force, how can opener re-evaluate his hand or honours in clubs if 2♣ could be artificial?
So we adopted Fred Gitelman's advice, 2NT natural, game forcing, stoppers everywhere outside opener's suit. Simple, direct, very, very efficient. If you have a fit in opener's suit, it can be only 3 cards. So let's see how it works.
Wow, we have a double fit. What do you do? Do you give fit in spades or in diamonds? Didn't you read somewhere that a 4-4 fit is better than 5-3 because, on the 5-3 suit, you will be able to discard losers? So you decide to give fit in diamonds. But wait… like in TV ads.
If you give fit in diamonds, partner won't know you have a spade fit. If you have possibilities for a grand slam and it is you asking for key cards in diamonds, you will learn maybe that partner has AK of spades, but what about the Queen of spades?
This is where bridge is so exhilarating: thinking, examining possibilities, ways of extracting information from partner, even if you have to lie to her. So, you think, I have to fit in spades so I can ask for keys in spades, for I will learn, with King ask, if she has the diamond king. But if I fit in spades and partner goes key card… but wait. Partner cannot go key card, she has no control in clubs. So if you bid 3♠, partner will bid 4♠ if she has a minimum. If she has extras, she will have to bid something else saying: I have a good hand. But wait, you say. What if she bids 4♦ over 3♠, to show a diamond control, but no club control? I say she can't. We play that over 3♠ GF, 4♦ shows controls in both clubs and diamonds, as 3NT is available to say: Please cue 4♣ if you have a control there. Simple, no? Brilliant, I think.
So
Super! Partner has no control in clubs, but she has extras, which means at least a king more than a minimum. So now all is in place.
Control your heart beat, relax, breathe in, check everything again, count: 5 spade tricks, 1 heart trick, 3 diamond tricks (3-2 break), 2 club tricks, 1 heart ruff in dummy and 1 club ruff in hand = 13. If trumps don't break, heart finesse will have to work. You reach out leisurely, take the 7♦ card in your hand and slowly place it on the table. It is not everyday you bid a grand slam, so savour the moment. And when is the last time you establish a false trump suit to reach a grand slam in another suit?
After putting the 7♦ card on the table, you look around the room, trying to find a pair that would bid like you did (isn't he so full of himself!). You can't find one. Everything worked like magic, but wait… Partner is thinking (she always does that to me). She examines her hand. Every second that passes kills me. Finally, finally, she puts the pass card on the table and you come back to life. Everything broke nicely, +2140.
But wait ‼! The heart finesse was on, so every card pusher could bid and make 7♠.
Don't lie, my mother told me, or you will get punished.
What is your bid?
If you play pure Jacoby 2NT, you can't, you don’t have 4 trumps.
If you play 2/1, can you really bid 2♦ on that suit? Maybe you can, but our style is a good 5-card suit, a source of tricks, not Jxxxx for example. The only exception over 1♠ would be if the suit was hearts.
As for those who would bid 2♣ just to create force, how can opener re-evaluate his hand or honours in clubs if 2♣ could be artificial?
So we adopted Fred Gitelman's advice, 2NT natural, game forcing, stoppers everywhere outside opener's suit. Simple, direct, very, very efficient. If you have a fit in opener's suit, it can be only 3 cards. So let's see how it works.
Wow, we have a double fit. What do you do? Do you give fit in spades or in diamonds? Didn't you read somewhere that a 4-4 fit is better than 5-3 because, on the 5-3 suit, you will be able to discard losers? So you decide to give fit in diamonds. But wait… like in TV ads.
If you give fit in diamonds, partner won't know you have a spade fit. If you have possibilities for a grand slam and it is you asking for key cards in diamonds, you will learn maybe that partner has AK of spades, but what about the Queen of spades?
This is where bridge is so exhilarating: thinking, examining possibilities, ways of extracting information from partner, even if you have to lie to her. So, you think, I have to fit in spades so I can ask for keys in spades, for I will learn, with King ask, if she has the diamond king. But if I fit in spades and partner goes key card… but wait. Partner cannot go key card, she has no control in clubs. So if you bid 3♠, partner will bid 4♠ if she has a minimum. If she has extras, she will have to bid something else saying: I have a good hand. But wait, you say. What if she bids 4♦ over 3♠, to show a diamond control, but no club control? I say she can't. We play that over 3♠ GF, 4♦ shows controls in both clubs and diamonds, as 3NT is available to say: Please cue 4♣ if you have a control there. Simple, no? Brilliant, I think.
So
Super! Partner has no control in clubs, but she has extras, which means at least a king more than a minimum. So now all is in place.
Control your heart beat, relax, breathe in, check everything again, count: 5 spade tricks, 1 heart trick, 3 diamond tricks (3-2 break), 2 club tricks, 1 heart ruff in dummy and 1 club ruff in hand = 13. If trumps don't break, heart finesse will have to work. You reach out leisurely, take the 7♦ card in your hand and slowly place it on the table. It is not everyday you bid a grand slam, so savour the moment. And when is the last time you establish a false trump suit to reach a grand slam in another suit?
After putting the 7♦ card on the table, you look around the room, trying to find a pair that would bid like you did (isn't he so full of himself!). You can't find one. Everything worked like magic, but wait… Partner is thinking (she always does that to me). She examines her hand. Every second that passes kills me. Finally, finally, she puts the pass card on the table and you come back to life. Everything broke nicely, +2140.
But wait ‼! The heart finesse was on, so every card pusher could bid and make 7♠.
Don't lie, my mother told me, or you will get punished.
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