Gavin is giving you instructions, but you are not really
listening. Knees bent, facing the wind, a bit nervous, you
wait. All of a sudden, Gavin, Noel and Mervin let go of the
parachute, the boat pulls you, you soar towards the sky, soon reaching
70 meters of altitude. In front of you, Barbados.
Under you, the Caribbean Sea, turquoise fluted with catamarans,
sailboats, surfboards and water skiers whose immaculate wakes
interweave in total silence.
Sometimes, the boat stops and you stay there, hanging on air.
Where is the earth, where is the sky? You don't want to know,
you just want to enjoy this exhilaration of flying.
This state of grace you sometimes reach at bridge, when everything is
going well, when you don't make mistakes, when good boards are followed
by excellent ones. You then climb at a certain altitude, you
live on a "high". You don't even talk to your partner, you
just want to maintain this altitude.
On the first board, you took a sacrifice in 5♣ doubled and, with a
false card, managed to keep it to -500, for 10,5 matchpoints out of
11. On the 2nd board, you locked declarer in dummy and he had
to concede down 2 in 3NT for another 10,5.
On Board 9, you have :
Opponents play Precision. In Barbados, everybody plays
Precision. Your partner leads the Ace of heart.
Dummy:
On the heart Ace, you play the 9, upside-down. Your partner
thinks a bit and returns... a club. You ruff and play back a
heart. A second club ruff follows. You play back a
spade. Partner wins the Ace and gives you a third club ruff
for +1100. After 11 boards, midway through the session,
you're at 78%.
You don't hear nothing anymore, you see only your 13 cards, you are not
warm, you are not cold, you just float with the parasail, you feel like
a god.
Board 12:
2♥ shows 2 controls, so 2 Kings, because you have all 4 aces.
You hesitate before bidding 2NT (22-24), but you want to protect AQ of
diamonds. 4NT is quantitative: 9-10 points, 4333. 5♣ says 0
or 4 aces. 6NT closes the auction but, knowing the club fit
(partner has shown 4333), you decide to bid the grand in
clubs. Partner corrects to 7NT.
The lead of the diamond Jack shows you have 12 tricks if clubs break
3-3 or if the Queen is well placed. Entries to dummy are
scarce and the diamond blockage is annoying.
You win in hand and play the club Ace: the devilish 10 appears on your
left. You follow your instincts and cash the diamond Queen
before playing a spade to the King.
You need 2 heart tricks, so Heart Queen from dummy (tension, hope,
fear, like before the Parasail ride). The queen
wins! You soar in the sky. You have to cash the
diamond King now because you will never go back to dummy.
All is left now is:
You play a small club from dummy, and you see small to your right.
The boat has stopped, you hear only the wind in the parachute, you are
in a second state: since the beginning, you knew you will finesse in
clubs. Will the wind die down and precipitate your
fall? Or will it push you higher, till your dream of cutting
the rope?
A passage from G.G. Marquez' "One
Hundred Years of Solitude" comes to your mind:
"Amaranta experienced a
mysterious chill in her lace petticoat and tried to hang to the sheets
in order not to fall, while Remedios the Beauty was beginning to rise
in the air. Ursula, already almost blind, was the only one to keep
enough mind to recognize the nature of this wind that nothing could
stop, and let the sheets go with this light, seeing Remedios the Beauty
waving farewells in the middle of the dazzling flapping of the sheets
climbing with her, leaving the world of beetles and dahlias, crossing
the regions of the air where it was already four o'clock in the
afternoon, to be lost forever with her in the higher spheres where the
highest birds of memory could not themselves reach her."
The boat starts again. How much time did you stay there,
dreaming? One second? You put the club 8 on the
table... RHO plays... not a club. + 2220.
In silence, you put your cards back in the board and the boat takes you
to the next table.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Trompe - L'oeil
Trompe-l'oeil is a technique used by painters, aiming essentially at creating,
with artificial perspective, the illusion of real objects. Basically, it gives the
illusion of three dimensions where there are only two. In Italy, in Liguria, you will
find many examples of trompe-l'oeil in churches and temples.
But at bridge, can you create trompe-l'oeil ?
Look at this example, from Bob Hamman's book, At the table.
Hamman reports this hand played by John Hancock in 1955 or 56.
Hamman explains also that Sydney Lazard, one of the great names in American bridge, almost gave up bridge when he learned how Hancock had played this hand. "How can I continue to play bridge when there are people making such brilliant plays?" wondered Lazard.
Hancock opened 1NT and his partner bid 3NT, over which East hesitated quite a lot before passing, hesitation noted by everyone present.
Hancock turned towards West and said: "Make your normal lead."
Well, West led a spade, the 9.
West had found declarer's weakness and East, an excellent player, also found the right defence when he played the 10, in order to maintain communication. How could Hancock arrive at 9 tricks with this perfect start for the defence? He had only 7 tricks and, the moment he would play heart, opponents would jump on their Ace and cash all their spades.
So what was Hancock's play at trick one?
HE DUCKED !
He knew East could not have the Ace of heart, for he would have opened with AKJ10xx in spades and the heart Ace.
If Hancock took his spade Queen, he would go down for sure. So he had to throw sand in the eyes of the defenders, he had to use trompe-l'oeil in order to create a false image of his hand for East.
Now, put yourself in East's place : how can he think declarer has ducked with Qxx in spades?
The lead of the spade 9 seemed to come from a doubleton, which would confirm Qxxx in declarer's hand.
Please note this play can only succeed against a good player, a player that counts and thinks. A bad player, seeing his 10 has won the trick, would simply bang down the Ace and the King, cashing the first 6 tricks and afterwards telling everyone who would listen how this "expert" ducked a sure trick and went down 3 in 3NT.
But East was not a bad player and he fell for the trompe-l'oeil created by Hancock.
He saw declarer would never make a spade trick, after ducking the first trick, so he switched to a heart. West won and came back another spade. At trick 3, East won his spade King and, not willing to give declarer a spade trick, switched again. Hancock had now 9 tricks and it is East who looked like a fool.
But what can one do in such cases if not congratulate declarer for such a brilliant play?
At Montreal's World Championship in 2002, a player made such a play and it is just too bad we don't know his name. Here is his hand and listen carefully to the bidding.
Opening your hand, in North, at your local game, your level of interest would probably dip down towards zero because, for the immense majority of club players, to play bridge is to play the hand.
To play in defence is a bad moment to endure : it is boring and it is soooooooo long, you don't pay to be in defence, the only fun at bridge is to play the hand. If we would make a phone call, before the start of the game, let's say to all East-West players, telling them they would defend 15 out of 24 hands that night, I think a majority would not come.
Once the bidding has started like you see, which seems to indicate North-South are going to slam, you would probably have put your hand on the table and start yawning.
3♣ shows extra values and 6♦ probably shows a void in diamonds. When West bids 7♣, do you think you can do something with your awful hand? The player seating North in Montreal World Championships, instead of complaining silently about his bad cards, thought he could do something. He doubled !!
Follow closely: a double in this situation is a Lightner double and asks for a special lead. In this case, the double would probably ask for a lead in the first suit bid by dummy, spades, and says you will win the first trick, with a ruff. You cannot ruff the first trick, you say? I know and that player knew it also, BUT, using trompe-l'oeil , this player created the illusion he was ruffing spades in order to push the opponents in 7♠, which they did. But why did he do that?
Look at the hand again.
Opponents have established a fit in clubs, North has 3 clubs and maybe, MAYBE, his partner has a void in clubs and will ruff the first trick. The double worked perfectly.
The plan had worked, the trompe l'oeil had pushed the opponents in the contract he wanted : the lead was a club and North waited anxiously, heart pounding, to see his partner's first card. Here is the whole deal :
Alas, partner did not ruff (partners are sooooooooo bad !), but that is not important.
The only important thing is that this player stayed with the hand during all the bidding sequence and that he imagined a way to defeat the grand slam.
I don't know the name of the player who did this, but it is, in my view, the most brilliant bid of the year.
What a trompe-l'oeil (especially with bidding boxes !).
But at bridge, can you create trompe-l'oeil ?
Look at this example, from Bob Hamman's book, At the table.
Hamman reports this hand played by John Hancock in 1955 or 56.
Hamman explains also that Sydney Lazard, one of the great names in American bridge, almost gave up bridge when he learned how Hancock had played this hand. "How can I continue to play bridge when there are people making such brilliant plays?" wondered Lazard.
Hancock opened 1NT and his partner bid 3NT, over which East hesitated quite a lot before passing, hesitation noted by everyone present.
Hancock turned towards West and said: "Make your normal lead."
Well, West led a spade, the 9.
West had found declarer's weakness and East, an excellent player, also found the right defence when he played the 10, in order to maintain communication. How could Hancock arrive at 9 tricks with this perfect start for the defence? He had only 7 tricks and, the moment he would play heart, opponents would jump on their Ace and cash all their spades.
So what was Hancock's play at trick one?
HE DUCKED !
He knew East could not have the Ace of heart, for he would have opened with AKJ10xx in spades and the heart Ace.
If Hancock took his spade Queen, he would go down for sure. So he had to throw sand in the eyes of the defenders, he had to use trompe-l'oeil in order to create a false image of his hand for East.
Now, put yourself in East's place : how can he think declarer has ducked with Qxx in spades?
The lead of the spade 9 seemed to come from a doubleton, which would confirm Qxxx in declarer's hand.
Please note this play can only succeed against a good player, a player that counts and thinks. A bad player, seeing his 10 has won the trick, would simply bang down the Ace and the King, cashing the first 6 tricks and afterwards telling everyone who would listen how this "expert" ducked a sure trick and went down 3 in 3NT.
But East was not a bad player and he fell for the trompe-l'oeil created by Hancock.
He saw declarer would never make a spade trick, after ducking the first trick, so he switched to a heart. West won and came back another spade. At trick 3, East won his spade King and, not willing to give declarer a spade trick, switched again. Hancock had now 9 tricks and it is East who looked like a fool.
But what can one do in such cases if not congratulate declarer for such a brilliant play?
At Montreal's World Championship in 2002, a player made such a play and it is just too bad we don't know his name. Here is his hand and listen carefully to the bidding.
Opening your hand, in North, at your local game, your level of interest would probably dip down towards zero because, for the immense majority of club players, to play bridge is to play the hand.
To play in defence is a bad moment to endure : it is boring and it is soooooooo long, you don't pay to be in defence, the only fun at bridge is to play the hand. If we would make a phone call, before the start of the game, let's say to all East-West players, telling them they would defend 15 out of 24 hands that night, I think a majority would not come.
Once the bidding has started like you see, which seems to indicate North-South are going to slam, you would probably have put your hand on the table and start yawning.
3♣ shows extra values and 6♦ probably shows a void in diamonds. When West bids 7♣, do you think you can do something with your awful hand? The player seating North in Montreal World Championships, instead of complaining silently about his bad cards, thought he could do something. He doubled !!
Follow closely: a double in this situation is a Lightner double and asks for a special lead. In this case, the double would probably ask for a lead in the first suit bid by dummy, spades, and says you will win the first trick, with a ruff. You cannot ruff the first trick, you say? I know and that player knew it also, BUT, using trompe-l'oeil , this player created the illusion he was ruffing spades in order to push the opponents in 7♠, which they did. But why did he do that?
Look at the hand again.
Opponents have established a fit in clubs, North has 3 clubs and maybe, MAYBE, his partner has a void in clubs and will ruff the first trick. The double worked perfectly.
The plan had worked, the trompe l'oeil had pushed the opponents in the contract he wanted : the lead was a club and North waited anxiously, heart pounding, to see his partner's first card. Here is the whole deal :
Alas, partner did not ruff (partners are sooooooooo bad !), but that is not important.
The only important thing is that this player stayed with the hand during all the bidding sequence and that he imagined a way to defeat the grand slam.
I don't know the name of the player who did this, but it is, in my view, the most brilliant bid of the year.
What a trompe-l'oeil (especially with bidding boxes !).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)