Odds and Ends

This post is an attempt to tie a few odds and ends from previous posts.

1. Summary of strong club experience in NZ nationals.

a) Opponents interfere over almost every 1C opening.
b) Bridge has so little to do with bidding system.
c) Playing against weak players helps reinforce our prejudices.
d) Strong club is a lot of fun. Standard sucks.

2. Suit combinations we should know by heart.

1. A3 ............ J10542
Cash the Ace and duck on the way back.

2. A4 ............ Q10985
Run the queen. Counter-intuitive. Compare #4

3 32 ............ AK10987
Cash the Ace. Play low to the ten.

4. Q10943 ........ A5
Cash the Ace and lead low to the queen. Can pick doubleton jack but not doubleton king.

5. J987 ........ K654
Run the nine. Then Run the seven. Superior to intuitive low to the king and low to the nine.

6. Q10542 ........ A94
Low to the ace. Low to the ten. Bet most would "double hook". Need the 8-spot for the double-hook to be right.

7. Q1053 ......... A942
Low to the ace. Low to the ten. Need the 8-spot for the double-hook.

8. J5 .............. AK9843
Cash the Ace. Run the jack. Superior to the routine "low to the jack". Low to the jack is correct when missing the 8-spot.

9. J5 ............ AK984
Cash the Ace. Run the Jack.

10. A5 ............ KJ984
Low to ace and low to the jack (or nine)

11. 32 ............ AKJ94
For four tricks, finesse the nine. If it loses, cash the Ace and King next.

12. Q1082 ........ A953
Finally....Double- hook :)

For combinations 7 and 12, leading a small one away from the ace is better if opponents are known to always hop king from Kx.


3. Officially-disliked system by the WBF.

Ware-Whibley, representing New Zealand, submitted a forcing pass system called Crunch for the Bermuda Bowl. The system would be permitted only in the knockout phases. They were pressured by WBF officialls to withdraw the system before it was posted for the other teams to see. As far as I know, there was no greater reason than that such a system would be a pain for the Americans and Italians to prepare against. It was suggested that submitting such a system may jeopardize the two spots that zone 7 holds for the Bermuda Bowl. They were also informed, even before the appropriate committee had a look, that such a system would probably be disallowed on grounds of incomplete information. With two weeks to go to the bowl, the system was disallowed on grounds on insufficient disclosure for one opening bid. They were not given a chance to improve their documentation.

Why does the WBF bother pretending that HUM systems are legal?

Big Bad Strong Club

After years of playing natural methods, I'm trying out some strong club systems in the upcoming men's pairs, snot, nznats and gnot.

One thing that strikes me is how much simpler a big club system is, once you absorb the mechanics. We dont have the issues of two partners taking three bids each and neither knowing the high-card strength of their partner.

For example, this is a hand that tony and I bid (playing natural) in the Coffs Harbour.



.... 1C
1H 1S
1N P

No one did anything terrible but we were miles away from bidding a vulnerable game. Two bids each and we could have had 11 opposite 6 points.


Strong club systems do come with their own share of problems, especially when the opponents interfere over 1C. One concept that I love is playing the strong club with a strong no-trump and a strong two no-trump. This is the style favoured by Meckstroth-Rodwell. It helps sort out core issues of game-versus-partscore in 1C- interference auctions a lot better than other stuff around.

The systems I am trying out are

MiniMeck - based on Meckwell structure with an Ozzie flavour.
Strong Club - no relay but using Fischer ask and Lasker Asker
5 card majors
1NT 14 to 16
2C 6+C
2D 3 suited short diamond
2NT 19 to bad 21.


Orgasm - …Overbidding Really Great Awesome Sartaj & Michael (Ware)…aka..Overbidding Retarded Games And Slams Making ..
Strong Club
1D = 4+H, could be canape
1H = 4+S, could be canape
1S = weak NT(inc. 5M)
1N 14 to 16
2C both minors
2D diamond suit
2NT 19 to bad 21
3C club suit.

Will try to post hands featuring our adventures and misadventures in strong club land here !

Also, a couple of days ago I taped an interview with Bobby Richman. When it shows up on this blog soon, I bet you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed conducting it !

More Beauty : Privilege of transfers

East's takeout double may not be a thing of beauty but he does not really have the textbook hand for a 2D overcall either.

At first glance, Bocchi's 3S bid seems a bit too keen. Partner passed over 1S doubled, there doesn't seem to be much upside in competing.

However, such hands show the hidden costs of the fashion of transfers.
Playing transfers over the takeout double, South has to pass with hands that would normally constitute a 1NT bid. In fact, the Italians pass with upto 9-10 HCP in similar situations. Their style is for the opener, even when minimum, to compete aggressively with shape to compensate.

Having already shown invitational-plus hand by bidding 2S, West can complete the message of balanced-game-force by doubling 3S. It is not a penalty double, just a better statement of the nature of his hand than the 4H call chosen. East, with three unexpected trumps (opposite a balanced game-force) and a singleton has an easy pass.

That is how a sophisticated partnership could have made N/S pay for the privelege of transfers. Yet I suspect their post-mortem would focus solely on the beauty of the takeout double of 1S and not the action that really caused the swing.

Previous post : I lied about the auction in the other room. North played 3NT on the same lead. When North crossed to a club, West had to play his lowest club. My guess is that East took that to be a (non) Smith signal and decided partner did not have the spade queen. He switched to a heart, which seems like an error anyways and that is what really caused the swing.

Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder

To some, developing methods and devising special treatments gives pleasure. Put the overcaller on lead, declare from the positional holding, right-side contracts. It all sounds very nice in theory. Do the work, the gospel holds, and the rewards will come.

Say we hold Kx in a suit and are contemplating the best way of protecting it.
The case against it runs :
For it to be right
1) Partner needs to have a weak holding in the suit, say xx or Qxx
2) The ace of the suit has to be disadvantageously placed.
3) Even with the Ace offside, they have to lead the suit
4) Even if they lead it, the anti-positionality has to be relevant to the swing on the board.

Analyzing through Spingold '09 R/16 Set3 Jacobs vs Schermer, two hands strike my eye.

Hand 1


With an elegant auction, North-South right-side the contract. Spades was the danger suit and the ace was offside. The defence led a spade. Declarer crossed to a club to finesse the diamond. East won and continued a spade for down one.

I find this beautiful.

Bridge is so random, its beautiful.

It gets better.
In the other room, they bid 1D - 1NT; 3NT. West's natural lead was a heart. Declarer won, crossed to a club and finessed the diamond. The defence was dead.

Isnt bridge so pretty ?

Tomorrow : The second hand and an admission that I lied about something in this post.

Every move you make...

Usually a hand as a defensive exercise will have only one or two key moments. What I like about the Ghalib Crown hand is that there was something to do at almost every early trick.



After N/S bid 1C - 1H; 2C - 3H; 4H this was our defence
1. SK - 3- 7 - 8
2. SJ - 4- 10 - A
3. HQ - K - A - 2
Good cover by West (Else declarer plays heart to the ace; cashes CA pitching a diamond; diamond to king and claim)
East should technically start the unblock by playing the heart six.

4. CQ - K - H7- C5

5. HJ - 3 - 4- 6
If East does unblock both his high hearts, superficially declarer has been locked in hand. But he can make by playing a diamond to the jack and the defence has to give him access to dummy's two club winners (6H, 1S, 1D and 2C tricks)

6. H9 - D9 - C3- H10
The diamond nine is an error. More on this later.

7. DA - D3- D4- D8
Better was to play a club. Then declarer has to avoid cashing his second winning club and lead a diamond. East has no choice but to rise with the diamond ace and give declarer delayed access to his club winner (and another diamond finesse).

8. D7 - D5- D6 - Claim.
If West preserves the diamond nine at trick 6, East can get off play with a club, rise with the diamond ace and play another club and defence comes to four tricks before declarer gets ten.

To finish off the story, the Thai pair nailed everything against us for the last set of the tournament and finished +41 on datum for the match.

The Ghalib Crown

At the end of any bridge tournament, its easy to find almost every non-winner partaking in something along the lines of
"At least we beat the winners."
"We were leading going into the last day ..."
"If it wasnt for that match versus..."
"If that trump queen was in the other hand..."
"At least we managed to beat our seeding"
"Our bidding and defence was top notch. Just a few sloppies in the declarer play..."
am sure you can add a few others.

The reality however is that we are the losers and they are the champions.

Reminds of a Ghalib couplet
Humko Maloom hai Jannat ki haqeeqat lekin,
Dil kay bahlaney ko Ghalib yah khayal achcha hai

Which translates to
I know about the truth of heaven
Its illusion nonetheless gives the heart some comfort

At the 2009 PABF in Macau, our little claim to fame was that Tony and I were topping the datums for the second round robin going into the last match. Until this happened versus the eventual winners of the Ghalib Crown.



After N/S bid 1C - 1H; 2C - 3H; 4H this was our defence
1. SK - 3- 7 - 8
2. SJ - 4- 10 - A
3. HQ - K - A - 2
4. CQ - K - H7- C5
5. HJ - 3 - 4- 6
6. H9 - D9 - C3- H10
7. DA - D3- D4- D8
8. D7 - D5- D6 - Claim.

Other than that spade accident, what other points could the defence have prevailed at ?

Continuing the Count Crunching

The solution to the "how to place dummy" is that a club to the king is best, for reasons well pointed out in the comments. At the table, I chose the inferior line of three rounds of diamonds, ruffed and overruffed. The choice of line was irrelevant as every thing was reasonably friendly.

The solution to the "how to wreck your life" problem posed here was also pointed out accurately in the comments. Partner would have led a diamond from an original holding of Qxxx. Also, we can extend our counting exercise to partner's hand. They led their fourth best club, are marked with a singleton heart, so their most likely shape is 4144.

Here is a more advanced example of the count-crunching-machine in play.

1S = no four card major

When East elected to lead his diamond and West gave him a ruff, can you deduce the East-West hands ?

Diamonds are known to be 1- 5; hearts are known to be 4-3; spades rate to be 4-1 and so the clubs have to be 4-4. A check of our calculations shows that 1354 (West) and 4414 (East) is consistent with the bidding and their system.

On the question of high cards, East has to have AKJ10 of spades (ruffs the diamond with the spade ten)and the Ace of clubs. West has already shown up with the diamond ace.

At the table, the defence (after the diamond ruff) continued with Ace and another club. Only the Club/heart jacks are unaccounted for; can declarer make this contract irrespective of their location or is it another case of the patient dying ?

The truth is out there.....

In my last post I posed this problem


Partner's bid appears to be irrational.
Since normal thought is not going to help, lets try the alternate style of crossing out alternatives.

Option 1: Partner has a weak hand with long clubs. Say QJ to eight clubs and out. That would be a comfortable natural, non-forcing 2C bid. Passing an eight card suit and giving up on an opportunity to bid cheaply does not seem to fit in with our bid-early-bid-quick style.

Points, Schmoints. In competitive auctions, shape rules.

So let us strike out a weak hand with long clubs

Option 2 : Partner has bit of a spade fit and some club values and is exploring for game. Again, making ambiguous wishy-washy bids is not our style. Although we have never explicitly discussed it, we go out of our way to avoid bids that partner may not understand. Partner is our friend, do not torture him.
Martin Reid mentioned the prototypical Qx,xxx,xxx,AKxxx hand for this theory but for us, this would be a 4S bid (bidding 1S and 2S shows a good hand) or 3S on a conservative day.

While there are still some lingering doubts in my mind about long-weak-clubs theory, we can certainly strike out this delicate game-try theory.

Option 3 : Is there an option three ?
Nothing else seems to be possibly going on. Or could it ?

If you have a genuine interest in getting to the heart of this problem, I would recommend stopping here and try thinking about a third option.

I recall reading something in a book or a magazine about what were believed to be bidding principles over 50 years ago. These were common sense beliefs in the expert community, some of which continue to be relevant today and some do not.
For example, partner passes as dealer, RHO opens 1H, we pass, LHO bids 4H, partner comes back in with 4S. Today, in our developed(?) style of bidding, we do not have a clue what partner has. Back then, this sequence clearly showed a weak two-suiter. Say 6 spades and a 5 card minor.

Another such principle was "Passing over 1NT and then coming back into the auction shows a solid suit". There isn't much point to bidding seven solid diamonds over a strong NT. Why not try a pass for now, hoping to go plus against 1NT or 3NT, but if the opponents seem to be heading into a suit contract, then we can always re-enter with 3D. Or so the thought of the time went.....

If we seriously consider this option, the rest of the hand falls perfectly into place. The opponents were in a vulnerable 1NT, a penalty double was not available, the points add up, there rates to be a spade misfit.
So the only thing which makes sense is approximately seven solid clubs and out.

Ergo, a confident 3NT and a prompt redouble.

Or perhaps a classic case of hindsight bias ?

Why I hate Peter Gill

In my previous post I posed this defensive problem.



Trick one goes spade queen ducked all round. Trick two is a spade to the king ducked again leaving us on play. Is there a clue or will we eventually succumb to the hindsight bias ?

At the table, in the PABF 2006, I realized the futility of continuing a spade. Between clubs and hearts, it appears to be a tossup at first glance, but the heart switch requires fewer specific cards in partner's hand. So I chose the H10.

Why I hate Peter Gill is because he spoilt my plans for this post by his insightful reply that can be found here.

"I must trust my partner - otherwise it is my error. "

Tony had played his lowest spade spot and his clubs were K109 (declarer had opened a 3334 11 count) so the club shift could have won us a game swing.

Now try this one


Over 1NT, partner's 2C would have been natural and double would have been takeout for the minors.

At the cross roads

The play sometimes progresses to a point where two options remain equally enticing. The evidence to date does not decide the case conclusively. Yet the professional player must take responsibility for his choice. Terence Reese has famously argued "There is always a clue."

For example, an opponent has overcalled 2 Clubs and we need to figure out whether they hold

or

The decision is not entirely logical yet it is not completely random either.

What usually happens after the post-mortem, however, is that the person in the hot seat, their partner and anyone else who knows the full hand concludes that "he should have got that one right."

For now, we are no longer grappling with the issue of assigning appropriate weights to all the subtle inferences. Subconsciously, either in an apologetic attempt at treating bridge as a purely logical pursuit or in an indulgent ego stroke for the capacity of our powers of deduction, we tend to favour the succesful choice. The weights that we struggled to appropriately apply to various factors at the table now appear to be clearer.

There is a term for this phenomenon, hindsight bias, that I came across in this brilliant book. Some links for the author and detail of his work can be found here, here and here.


Meanwhile, back on the subject, try solving a defensive problem

Trick one goes spade queen ducked all round. Trick two is a spade to the king ducked again leaving us on play. Is there a clue or will we eventually succumb to the hindsight bias ?

Struggling for Objectivity : Emotion Part 1

In my last post, we started looking at a hand that I misdefended.
The full hand was



On a heart lead, declarer won the Ace to play a club. I won the CA to continue a heart as declarer pitched two diamonds. Now declarer unblocked the club queen from dummy and played a low spade.

Even though the apparent Suicide Point had been passed, Tony was on the ball and rose with the Spade Ace just in time for us to be in control. He continued a heart as declarer ruffed with the SJ (ruffing high does not work either). I overruffed and played a club for down 1. In a pure technical sense Tony's play is not that hard to find. But, at the table, it’s a play that will slip past many.

The reason being that our struggle for objectivity is hampered by emotion. Here, the emotion might be of dejection (at my end) or derision (at Tony’s end) or resignation(at both ends). The Suicide Point is nothing but an excuse for a bridge player letting emotion cloud the need for objective analysis.

There will be more on emotion in another post, including the views of Eric Rodwell.

Meanwhile, another example of this phenomenon occurred in the match between Team Lavazza and Australia-PABF. Sementa as West returned a club at trick three. The play progressed to the same juncture as at our table and Duboin stayed on the ball to hop with the spade Ace. But when he returned a heart, Sementa overruffed and tried to cash the Ace of diamonds.

Makes me look like a legend !

The Fifteen Thousand Dollar Question

A lively discussion about the merits of selecting the Australian team has been underway here and here. One item that has not been mentioned yet is the only time in recent history where Australia had a selected team. “Australia-Selected” (Nunn- Hans, Fruewirth-Delmonte) featured at the Yeh Cup 2009.

We had a good run in the Swiss to earn our place in the double-knockout. We lost our first life to the eventual winners, Netherlands. In our second avatar, we found ourselves in a three-way match with Meckwell Inc. and the Indian national team. 16 boards against each with only one team out of three to go through.

We won the match versus India convincingly but lost to USA-Hampson by 5 imps. There were three key moments ; if any of these three sway our way, the team qualifies for the semi-final and rates to make atleast 15,000 AUD(teams tending to split prize-money in the last stages of this tournament).

Hand 1 features who else but the imp chimp …..

KQx
KQ
xx
QJ10xxx

All vulnerable, East Deals

Rod --- Nunn --Meck--Chimp
West --North --East -- South
--------------------P ------1C
1H ----- 1S ------ 4H ------ P
P ------- X ------- P ------ ?

The ancillary context can be set by stating that we play 1NT as weak in this position. 1S shows 5+ spades and partner would have bid 2S (fit-jump) if he had 4 clubs in his bag.

Let’s start with some snippets from the smoking area.
“4S. Isnt it automatic ?”
“4S. In all these close decisions, I find it best to just bid.”
“4S. Surely you can’t pass. The chimp passed ? What a tosser” J

Moving on to the chimp, at the table. My thoughts (actual bids in bold)


(Picking up the hand) “ What to open ? Nah, 1NT (12-14) is too weird. We don’t do this shit. Its not even close. Easy 1C”

(1C – 1H – 1S – Meck hesitates for 4-5 seconds) “Meck hesitating. That doesn’t happen often. If he bids 2H, I bid 2S. If he bids 3H, hmm, am I going to get bullied into 3S. Probably. Don’t like it with KQ doubleton heart. Don’t know.”

(1C – 1H – 1S – 4H) “ 4 Hearts? Pass. Ha. You are not getting away with this one. 4S is a suckers’ call. I am not falling for it.”

(…. P – P – X) “Hmm.. The situation is practically the same as over 4H. T cant have 4 clubs so can rule out the double fit. The bit about 4S over 4H might apply with Kx of hearts but with KQ, no way. We are certainly not making 4S. (*) Pass”

(*) = flashback to a comment by Tony. “I like to bid when we have some chance of making our contract. Don’t like pure sacrifice bidding”

(Having pushed the tray through) “ This is a key moment. I can feel it. But I’ve already made my bid. Still standing with pass. Hope this goes down. No way are we making 4S”


The first key moment for our survival ends here. The whole auction took 30 seconds.
4H doubled made. 4S would be down 1 in practice.

Appraisal

An hour or two after the hand was over, I had filed this one under “My concept around these 4S-over-4H situations potentially needs to be reassessed. It was a conscious decision to pass 4H and that’s my concept. So this certainly wasn’t a delivery issue”

A more truthful assessment at a later date highlights the issues within the delivery
-- The realization that it was a key moment sunk in only after the bid had been made and the tray had been pushed back.
-- The emotional ego-agenda around “Wont let them bully me”.
-- The flashback to a comment by Tony which was in a different context.
-- Lack of awareness, at the table, of a historical personal issue with 4S-over-4H themes. Has bitten me before, ANOT 2008 hand versus Ed among others.
-- Considered the angle of partner denying 4 Clubs but did not consider the angle of extra offense in partner’s hand (6 spades or heart void)

If I had managed to break tempo for this decision (realize key moment, realize complex assesment required), wonder what decision would I have taken ?

However, in my attempted reassesment of concept, I polled some of the top players around who did not know about the hand. I have learnt that asking the opinion of someone who’s seen a hand-record is a meaningless exercise. We have an innate retrospective bias and when there exists a fine line between two actions, the influence of the succesful result is strong enough to hamper objectivity.

Helgemo : “4S”. It made an impression on me how quickly he bid 4S. “No doubts”, I enquired. “None”.

Brogeland : “4S”. A bit slower, if I recall correctly. But maybe it was someone else who answered that.

Versace : “ This is a difficult hand, you know…….(walks along with me)….In general, my style is to bid. But here it feels wrong….(walks some more)…It depends on partner’s clubs. We could have a double fit ..( I interject the inference about partner denying 4 or more clubs)….Oh well, I guess I pass, but I am not happy about this”

Me, I am the happiest chimp in the planet. Who cares about fifteen thousand dollars if Versace thought it was right to pass ? Who cares about the smoking area wankers ? Oh well, that’s a relief.

Anyways, a few hours pass. We are now playing the IMP pairs. There is a lot of prize money, but my heart somehow is not into it (delivery issue), we finish a round and I feel a tap on my shoulder.

Its Versace, fiddling with his hair as he speaks.
“You know, I have been thinking about that hand. I think its right to bid. Sometimes partner’s diamonds are Q third or something like that. (walks along to the smoking area). At pairs, I would pass. But at teams bridge, I think I should bid. If we go one off, they go one off, it will not be a disaster. Yes, at teams, I keep my teammates’ score into the equation. I think 4S is right. But passing is not an error. You passed? Yes, what happened ? What were partner’s diamonds? Oh, they made….Well….”

I am caught between the amazement of the way his mind works, that he thought it was worthwhile coming back to me to share this opinion, and the disappointment of not being to able to console myself that I had some august company.
By now, however, Lauria has walked over and I request Versace to ask him. He fires off in Italian. Lauria take half a second “I Pass” and walks off in a huff.

I decide to disappear from Surfers before Lauria changes his mind.