One hundred percent

 Sometimes, when I'm in the mood, I check on Hanoi Rondon and his quest for the 100% game (BBO). I just love the way he says "One hundred percent" with a little emphasis on the "hun" and the "cent."

On this board, the first of an "instant" tournament at matchpoints, I just didn't fancy a 1♦️ opening.  I wouldn't really know what to rebid. So, I took a leaf out of Hanoi's book and opened 1NT.

When my robot jumped to 3NT I started to get a little nervous!  But, not to worry, it's cold as long as West doesn't lead the CK at trick one!

In an instant tournament, a top is always 14 (US style), but there were no other 3NT contracts our way. I could just hear Hanoi intoning "One hundred percent!"

The semi-preemptive 3NT

I'm a fan of what I call the semi-preemptive 3NT based on a good minor suit (or minor suit fit). It makes it awkward for the opponents and has relatively little danger for the bidder. If they double, we can usually go back to 4m. 

Incidentally, I recently heard a funny story from Andrew Robson on the Sorry Partner podcast. In the story, at favorable vulnerability, he overcalls a 1C opening bid on his right with 3NT, having eight solid diamonds and five tram tickets. LHO, a world class player, doubles and leads a heart.  [Andrew had no good explanation for why he didn't "run"]. Dummy comes down with eleven worthless cards, a diamond and... the ace of hearts!

But here's the hand that happened to me just last week:

When I bid 3NT in this auction, my robot partner did not understand it as a semi-preemptive 3NT. He bid 4NT (invitational to 6NT). Naturally, I had no aspirations for slam so I just passed. As you can see, this was the first board of a tournament, and I was tempted to just give up. But I played on, going quietly off two.

The result was a 100% board! The opponents had slam available in hearts (although nobody bid it). A few people were in 5DX for -500 (a bottom). The rest were all in 4H making six. Best defense would get me down three but, undoubled, that would still be a top board.

I wonder what would have happened if partner had not bid 4NT. Maybe the robots would have re-opened the auction and things would not have worked so well for me. But that's the beauty of preemptive bids--especially those that look like they might be to play. And, as we saw above with Andrew Robson's story, every now and then, you actually get to make your crazy contract!

Spider bridge

Of course, you've heard the story about Robert the Bruce and the spider. Twice the spider failed to connect its web, but succeeded on the third try. That spider and, thus inspired, Robert the Bruce, refused to give up and were successful in the end. Here are two consecutive deals which looked hopeless at first. But I refused to give up...

Rixi Markus was fond of saying "most contracts can be made, and most contracts can be defeated." That's what makes bridge so much fun (and occasionally frustrating). Both of the the contracts shown here could (and maybe should) have been set. But they weren't!

Sometimes, I take the descriptions of the robot's hand a little too optimistically. As David Bird would say in the title of his excellent book: "Somehow, we ended up in 6NT." 

Assuming RHO doesn't have DT7653, we have 11 tricks after knocking out the spade ace.  So, all I had to do was to win the opening lead of CQ, and play a spade up to the queen. If it loses, I've "rectified the count" for a squeeze, and it it wins... then I've still got my 11 tricks, but without having rectified the count.

At this point, the double dummy play is to duck a spade to RHO's now singleton ace. But, in any case, I should have cashed the CK before crossing back to dummy, in order to tighten my grip on the defenders. I suspect that, had I done so, they would have defended correctly and I would go down.

Instead, RHO felt squeezed in three suits (he wasn't squeezed in clubs and should have known that from the opening lead). Nevertheless, we pitched three hearts in quick succession. Up to this point, I had no trouble pitching losers from my hand: the three small black cards. On the last diamond, the "squeeze card," RHO played yet another heart and I discarded the C4. It was unlikely to be useful since LHO who was certainly guarding clubs would be playing after me.

At this point, there were only four hearts out and if they all fell under the AK, the contract would be mine. And so it proved.

If there is a moral to this story, it is this: even if you don't have a true squeeze, and even if you don't play it perfectly, your opponents may not quite know what's going on and give you the contract anyway.

The next hand was an example of that uncommon situation: the "impossible spade." Kudos to the robot for knowing this convention but shame on him for not understanding the follow-up bids. My 3D was "to play!" If I'd wanted to be in game, I could have made any other bid. Notwithstanding his minimum invitation and poor trump support, my CHO put me in 4H.

The D8 looked ominously like a singleton (although it wasn't). I had two spade losers, at least one club loser and, since I was missing KJ9743 of trumps, it looked like at least one, if not three trumps losers. Was there any hope at all? I opted to win the opening lead in the dummy and play a low trump to my queen. For better or worse, I decided to return a trump, using the ten to force at least one of the top honors out. LHO, somewhat obligingly, played the nine while RHO followed the principle of playing the card he was known to hold, the king.

At this point, RHO made a play (CQ) that wasn't exactly wrong, but certainly made my life a little easier, since I was the one with the jack. After caching the spade ace at trick five, he can easily get himself a trump promotion by continuing with a low spade to his parter's king. But this is where the play of the CQ led to their failure: believing that RHO had the CJ for the setting trick, he gave up on the trump promotion and played a club. After winning the trick and drawing the outstanding trumps, I could claim another impossible contract.

Papa the Greek outdoes himself--or Greed can be a very bad thing

A robot tournament hand that came up the other day on BBO reminded me of several similar situations from Victor Mollo's wonderful Bridge in the Menagerie series. In these stories, Papa the Greek plays the role of S. J. Simon's "Unlucky Expert" while his frequent partner, Karapet Djoulikyan, we are told, is the unluckiest player in both hemispheres. 

So, please forgive me if I put names to the robot characters in my story. Since no great masterstroke was required to make this hand (just normal careful play), I assigned myself the role of Colin the Corgi, the facetious young man from Oxbridge. My partner was that inveterate point-counter, Walter the Walrus. 

As Karapet would surely have said after the hand, "If you're going to double based on your two aces, at least have the decency to cash them!"

+1680 was worth 96.5%, tying with two others and losing to one brave soul who "sent it back."

The push double

A situation often arises in competitive bidding where one side pushes the other side into (usually) a game contract and then the pusher doubles.

Like many aspects of bridge logic, this one can be interpreted by looking at the scoring table. Let's take a look at an example:

South suspected that he could not defeat 3♠️ so decided to push the opponent into a game that he hoped he could defeat. If the push was successful, then plus 50 would be a much better matchpoint score than -140.  There would be absolutely no good reason to risk the double here. If the push was unsuccessful, then, without a double, -420 would probably have company. But -590 would clearly be a lot worse than the -170 that the opponents were probably going to make without the push.

So, it seems to me that the double cannot be to increase the penalty. Often going from 50 to 100 doesn't even change your matchpoints! It must be lead-directing. But to what?

Without the double, you were going to lead a club, right? If partner was happy with you leading a club, why would he double? 

So, what's the best lead here? Not a trump--that cannot be right. How about a diamond? It could be right but it doesn't look right with this holding. So, you lead your singleton heart, partner wins the ace and gives you a ruff. We will come to a spade, a heart, a heart ruff and we must score the ♦️K. +100.  Dummy is void in clubs so your trumps will be drawn before you can score a heart ruff (if you led a club).

Actually, I told a little white lie here. Partner didn't have the Ace. But declarer failed to go up with dummy's ace and partner won his King and you still got your ruff.

Sound unlikely? Well, yes. Declarer went up with dummy's ace, drew trumps and bye-bye heart ruff. Scoring -590 for 0%.  Pushing them without doubling would have scored 16%. Failing to push? Hard to know. Dummy had six spades, a club void, the ♥️A and the ♦️Q. Would they have raised to 4? Quite possibly not. So, the push strategy was misguided this time.

But the principle of the "push double" being lead-directing is eminently sound.

Boxing and the Horizon Principle

 A hand came up recently which I thought was a good example of when (and how) to use the ideas of boxing and the horizon principle. Let's define them.

Whenever you make a limited bid, you have "boxed" your hand. In other words, you have to a greater or lesser degree reduced the number of possible hands that you can hold. No subsequent bid can get you out of the box. So, if an ace was hiding behind one of the other cards when you made your earlier bid, no amount of persuasion can convince your partner that you have that ace. You will have to make a unilateral bid if you feel that it is necessary. [I covered this topic in one of my first blogs: The No-undo principle]

Similarly, if both partners have boxed their hands, then certain contracts are no longer "on the horizon."

For example, you open 1♠️ and partner responds 2♠️.  If you are playing a strong club system, you have "boxed" your own hand to somewhere between 11 and 16 points. Partner's hand has between 5 and 10 points. The most you can have between you is 26 points, but this would only occur when both partners are balanced. Slam is not on the horizon. Both partners know this, so any bid that you make now is a game try and cannot be a slam try.

If you are playing a standard bidding system where you are limited to, say, 20 points, it's conceivable though unlikely that you still might have slam. So, a bid of a new suit (a game try of some sort) might turn out to be an advance control-showing bid in search of slam if partner accepts what he sees as a game try (following the related principle of "game before slam"). 

When partner is unlimited, certain contracts, such as a small slam, maybe on your horizon but, from partner's point of view--when you have boxed your hand--those same contracts may not be on his horizon.

Enough discussion. Let's look at the hand (matchpoints):

♠️K74 ♥️AK984 ♦️AQ82 ♣️8

A nice hand for sure. You deal and open 1♥️ (nobody is vulnerable). LHO gets in there with 1♠️. Partner, predictably, makes a negative double. RHO passes and it's up to you.

Partner is unlimited (he should have at least 7-8 points) and you have boxed your hand somewhat by your failure to open 2♣️ and the fact that you opened in first seat. So, 11 to 20 points or thereabouts and at least five hearts. You could easily have a slam here, although presumably not in hearts. What about diamonds? 

You are about to re-box your hand. If you bid 2♦️, you will have effectively boxed your hand to something like 11 to 16 points, with at least nine cards in the red suits. You may still have visions of slam, but what about partner? He will need substantially more than a minimum to entertain slam now. From his point of view, 2♦️ will likely take slam off the horizon.

What about 3♦️? You will be refining your box to something like 16 to 20 points with the same red suit cards. If partner has a fit for diamonds (as the double suggests he might) and something like 12 or more points of his own, slam may still be on the horizon for both partners.

You decide to rebid 2♦️ and partner cue-bids 2♠️. Partner's hand now has a new box: at least 11 points and, probably (but not definitely), fewer than three hearts, as he would likely have bid 2♠️ immediately with three hearts and 10-plus points.

It looks like we have a diamond fit (with four or five spades, partner may have opted to trap-pass so partner likely has eight minor suit cards). Possible contracts are 2NT, 3♦️, 3NT, 5♦️, 6♦️, 6NT. Partner's sequence is consistent with all of those contracts. At matchpoints, we would tend to favor 2NT over 3♦️ and 3NT over 5♦️.

Is partner's bid forcing? Obviously. But forcing to what? There are several opinions on this, but let's look at the hand from partner's point of view. With our hand boxed into 11-16 points, partner will need something like 16 points for slam to be on the horizon. What about game vs. part-score? If partner only has 11-12 points, he will want to know if we are at the low end or the high end of our box.

The two bids then that could legitimately be passed by partner are 2NT and 3♦️. We decide to bid 2NT and partner passes. We make twelve tricks in notrump for a somewhat embarrassing +240.

Here is the actual hand:

Sacrificing for Dummies

It's ten years since I last wrote something here on the Law of Total Tricks. My goal this time is to come up with something really simple to remember when considering a save.

My thoughts on this were prompted by a recent hand:

My overcall of 1♦️opposite a passed hand was not a thing of beauty, I'll admit. But, I'm loath to make a sub-standard takeout double when our side is probably out-gunned. South's 3♣️ was described as "weak." What should West do here? I think a responsive double might work out best. If partner has four spades, we'll find it. If not, we'll likely be playing 3♦️ which can't be all bad. At the table(s), many pairs played 3♠️ either by East or West which mostly made given that N/S didn't find the double-dummy lead of ♦️K or ♦️T.

Over partner's 3♦️, North made a crazy leap to 5♣️. I could have been the hero by doubling (+300) but "knowing" that partner cannot bid higher (see Passed Hands may make only one Free Bid), I thought I'd allow him to pass or double, as appropriate. 5♦️ was completely unexpected and, as I'll show below, very unlikely to be the winning action. It's almost never right to take the last guess! And, it's OK to save with the ace of the enemy suit because it's likely to be of value at defense and offense. But kings, queens and jacks in their suit should be a red flag as they may be useful only on defense.

In fact, along double-dummy lines, N/S can make 3♣️, 2♥️, or 2NT. E/W can make 2♠️ or 3♦️.  21 total trumps. 18 total tricks. I would suggest that the shortfall in total tricks is due to the lack of useful shortness: each side has the (short) top honors in the other side's trump suit.

For the remainder of this article, we will consider entirely hypothetical situations. The following table shows the number of total tricks to make a sacrifice profitable at matchpoints, according to the levels of bidding involved:

Levels	Favorable	Equal Red	Equal White	Unfavorable
4/4	17	18	18	19
5/4	18	19	19	20
5/5	19	20	20	21
6/5	20	21	21	22
6♠️/6♥️	18	19	20	21
6/6m	19	20	20	21
7/6M	19	20	21	22
7♣️/6♦️	20	21	21	22
7/7	18	19	20	21

Note that it is assumed in all cases that the opposing contract is actually making. The requisite number of total tricks may be available but if they are distributed too evenly, the save will be a phantom.

Let's remind ourselves that the most common number of total tricks is 17. If the opponents bid 4♥️, and we have a good spade fit and are at favorable vulnerability, we can consider saving in 4♠️. How do we know if there will be 17 (or more) total tricks? The bidding will give clues as to the fits around the table. But, the simple number of tricks in each direction isn't really sufficient information (see "I Fought the Law"). A trick total of 17 will likely involve some shortness (singleton) somewhere at least. Do you have it? Did partner show shortness? Did one of the opponents? If so, you may try it. Otherwise, you might want to hold back until you think there are 18 total trumps.

There are several likely outcomes in 4♠️. Any time 4♥️ was not making, we will get a poor score, unless 4♠️ makes. Even if they didn't double, -100 instead of +100 (or 200 if we had doubled) will not usually score well.

But let's assume that 4♥️ was indeed making. If they didn't double 4♠️, we are guaranteed a good result. If they do double, as long as our estimate of 17 total tricks was accurate, we should be fine. Except when they could have made 650 and we are down four for -800. That's an all-too-common disaster. That's why, even in this situation, you really would like to have 18 total tricks.

And this is, according to the chart above, the most advantageous situation for taking a sacrifice (shown in green in the table).

There are three other situations where we might seriously consider a sacrifice (yellow rows in the table):

• at the 5-level over their 4-level game;
• 6♠️ over 6♥️;
• 7 over 7.

In each of these cases, we require 18 total tricks (not an uncommon situation) and of course favorable vulnerability. Each worsening of the vulnerability situation (see table) requires one additional total trick. Except in goulash-type hands, deals with 20 or more total tricks are rare. Also note that in the second and third of these situations, the all-white and unfavorable situations are particularly dangerous because they require 21 and 22 total tricks respectively (in each case, one more than the 5/4 sacrifices).

From the red rows in the table, we can also see that we should never (well, hardly ever) even contemplate a sacrifice at the 6-level over a game contract, or 7♣️ over 6♦️, as these require at least 20 total tricks. Don't even think about these when not at favorable.

The other situations (amber in the table -- 5 over 5, 6 over 6 minor, 7 over 6 major) should generally be avoided too. To consider any of these at equal vulnerability--especially the last one when all white--is, well, just madness.

Bust hand?

When playing a "standard," i.e. non-big-club, system, the 2♣ opening usually is an artificial bid showing a strong hand of 22+ hcp (if balanced) or an unbalanced hand that only needs one "card" to make game. Traditionally, responder bids 2♦ and then, after opener has described their hand (balanced or with a good suit), responder gets to show that they have a "bust" (the second negative) or not.

But there's a popular response that shows a bust immediately by bidding 2♥. There are lots of reasons not to like this convention but the one I'm going to concentrate on here is that responder must make their decision before knowing anything about opener's hand. A common understanding is that 2♦ shows an ace, a king or two queens. I've never been comfortable playing that agreement because "two queens" might be just what partner needs for slam, or tram tickets. Let's take this example: ♠x ♥xx ♦Qxxxx ♣Qxxxx. If partner has a balanced 22, either (or both) of these queens might be useful. But suppose partner's hand is ♠AKQTxx ♥KQxx ♦Ax ♣K. How useful do you think your two queens are now?

For a real life example of the perils of this method, I present a hand from a friendly team match:

If partner shows a balanced hand, this could be quite a useful hand. We'd like to play game or slam in hearts by partner. But, what if partner has an unbalanced hand with spades? Our hand might not be so useful. Here's what happened (the auction ends in 6♠ if you can't see all of it):

On any lead but a club or diamond, the contract is down 2. On a club lead, there's a chance only if the opponents mis-defend. On a diamond lead, the contract is always down 1.

Believe partner, not the opponents

Here's an ordinary hand: ♠J765 ♥A3 ♦T864 ♣J93. It's an IMP pairs and no-one is vulnerable. You are playing vanilla 2/1. Partner is the dealer and starts proceedings with 1♣. After a pass, you bid 1♠. LHO doubles this and partner redoubles.  This is a support redouble so it says nothing about strength, simply that partner has exactly three spades. A support double mostly shows a balanced hand, but with the redouble, it's a little less clear since the opponents have claimed the other two suits.

The bidding continues with 1NT on your right over which you, naturally, pass, as does LHO.  Partner now doubles. What do you think is going on?

First, of all, you have to decide whether this is penalty or takeout. If it's takeout, what exactly would it be taking out into? LHO has both red suits apparently. Partner could be asking you to take a preference between the black suits, I suppose.

But, if you've been reading my stuff on penalty triggers, you will be in no doubt. Redouble is a penalty trigger. All subsequent doubles are for penalty. Added to that, RHO just made a competitive notrump bid and that's a trigger, too.

However, let's say that you've been reading lately that there's a kind of double called "intended-as-penalty." Partner expects you to leave it in unless you have an unbalanced hand. Would 5-5 in the pointed suits be sufficiently unbalanced? Maybe. It is IMPs. But the opponents are not vulnerable so, even in our worst nightmare, they might make an overtrick for 380.

There's another consideration. Partner opened 1♣ so either he has an unbalanced hand with 16+ and clubs, or a balanced hand with 18-19. Either way, I think we have a pretty good idea what to lead: a club!

You decide to show a weak, distributional hand, by bidding 2♦ and we end up in 2♠ making 170 for an average board. It's a shame though because we could have had 800 in 1NTX, 420 in 4♠, 430 in 3NT, or 920 in 6♣.

Here's the whole hand:

The moral of the story? Believe partner, not the opponents.

More on the penalty-oriented double

One of my more recent blogs was on the Penalty-oriented Double. I feel that this is a legitimate clade in the zoology of doubles.

Here it is in action:

What will you call? Partner is suggesting trying for 200 and that looks tempting. But, could it be that partner is expecting a bit more meat on the bone of your hand? You did make a 2-level overcall and you don't exactly have the goods, do you?

And, you know that partner has exactly three hearts (well, it's 90% certain) and less than opening strength. If you do take it out to 4H, how bad could things be? -300 and -100 are the likely results. OTOH, maybe we are due 200. But, think about it. How many diamonds are we getting? zero. Other suits? three? There's a very real possibility of ending up with -710. That's sure to be a bottom while 200 is almost certainly going to be a top. Do we want to be risking a bottom for a top? If we had a diamond trick, that would swing the pendulum towards passing. But as it is? I think pulling the POD to 4H is the best plan.

The results?  4DX= was worth zero match-points. 4HX-1 was worth 64%.

In case the link stops working at some point, your hand (white vs. red) is 87 QT762 985 AQJ. Partner deals and passes, RHO opens 1S, you bid 2H, LHO bids 3D, partner bids 3H, RHO bids 4D, passed to partner who doubles.

Partner's hand? AJT6 J53 7 KT973.

When you really want it to be for penalties but it just isn't

 In a recent online club game, I picked up the following not very promising hand: QT874 75 Q9632 6 as West. We were at unfavorable vulnerability and partner opened 2H as dealer. RHO doubled and I quickly passed hoping that LHO wouldn't convert to penalties. Imagine my delight when LHO jumped to 4S. No, I didn't do anything foolish like double. 

Partner led the HT and dummy came down: 5 AQJ2 AK85 A953. A fine hand. Just not for playing 4S. Despite my good spade suit, this was a surprisingly tough contract to set but we did get our 50 in the end. This wasn't quite a top, because at another table, after the same start, South pulled 4S to 6NT, going down two.

Three other tables began with 2H double. In each case, the North hand bid a more modest 2S or 3S and doubler was able to call 3NT, which should take eleven tricks, and mostly did. One table began with 2H followed by two passes. North, didn't cooperate but instead bid 2S, converted to 3NT. Note that 2H doubled would have been worth 1100 for N/S.

The par result is 6C for 920, which nobody found, not even those that didn't get a 2H preempt. 

Here is the whole hand:

So, how should the South hand act over the 2H bid? I think this is a clear-cut trap pass. First of all, if partner has some nondescript hand and decides to pass, we might not even have a game, in which case 200, 300 or 400 will be a fine result. But, if North has some useful values, we can be sure that he will act in some way. He probably has only one or two hearts which will make him want to do something. If that something is double, we will of course sit for it. We only need to get the contract down two to beat any game that we can make. But what if he has his own suit and decides to bid that. No harm done. We just bid 3NT. 

A trap pass such as this is one of the most satisfying situations in bridge--that is when partner comes through. It can fizzle of course if partner meekly passes. But, even then, all may not be lost.

The Granovetter Principle

 I recently played in the NAOBC teams tournament (0-5000). We reached the quarter-final but, sadly, our luck ran out there.

Along the way, there were some interesting slam hands. This one was an exemplar for what I call the "Granovetter Principle." It's common sense, of course, but it was drilled into me on a similar hand by Pam Granovetter during an online bidding practice session.

Here is the hand on which, surprisingly, we gained 17 IMPs when my counterpart received a less favorable lead and went down in the same contract:

The essence of the principle is that, when you are in a control-bidding sequence, as soon as you know that slam is safe, bid it. Don't pass the buck to partner, however enthusiastic he may have seemed so far. Because, if he simply signs off in a game contract, you won't know what to do any more than you know now. In fact, you may think he's showing doubt and so pass, when all he's saying is that he has nothing more to say that you haven't already heard.

In this case, after Dan bid 5♣, I had an "obvious" 5♦ bid. But if I bid 5♦ and Dan bid 5♥, I wouldn't know any more than I already did. So, with Pam's advice swimming in my head, I just bid 6♥. 

Elementary, my dear reader.

POD: Penalty-oriented double

Back in the early days of bridge there was the penalty double. However, people began to realize that it wasn't much use at low levels because you could rarely get rich even if they were psyching--they would just run to the real suit or otherwise escape justice. Thus the penalty double evolved into two clades: the penalty double and the informatory double (nowadays this is universally known as a takeout double).

It didn't take long for the takeout clade to further evolve into two sub-clades: pure takeout and "cooperative" doubles. The latter include all sorts of strangely named beasts: action, cooperative, competitive, etc.  The general rule (not very well described in the literature) is that the higher the level, the more tempted partner will be to leave it in. This latter form is at its most useful in matchpoint bridge because, if you can catch them speeding and get them down one doubled and vulnerable, it will beat any part-score you might be able to have made. 

I believe there are, however, two sub-clades of the penalty double:

1. pure penalty:  "don't take it out if you ever want to play with me again;"
2. penalty-oriented: "you're expected to leave it in if you have normal distribution, nothing that partner doesn't know about."

Actually, this latter type is perhaps more common than you think. It occurs any time you bid a game, the opponents sacrifice and the player in direct seat doubles. That player can never be sure that defending a doubled contract is the par result. What he means by the double is this: "From where I'm sitting, it looks like doubling is our best shot. Feel free to pull if your hand is more offensively oriented than I think it is."

But it might not be a clear sacrifice. Such situations may be somewhat rarer, but they are not unknown. An example came up just the other day in a pairs event. I will give you my partner's hand and the auction first: ♠KQJ8432 ♥T3 ♦Q ♣K53.

Both sides are vulnerable. Admittedly, not everyone will open 1♠ but I think it's the right bid, provided that you're willing to be a bit flexible later on in the auction. LHO overcalled 2♥ and partner raised to 2♠. RHO upped the ante with 3♥ and you made a preemptive raise to 3♠, showing six or more spades and presumably a hand that is on the weak side for an opening bid. LHO doesn't go quietly and bids 4♥. Partner doubles and it's back to you. Your call?

What do we know about the auction? The opponents are a self-described pickup pair and their profiles suggest intermediate. Do you think they have their bids? They might have stretched a bit, but nobody bids this way without something pretty good. What about partner's double? Is it a penalty double? I think it is. One of the "rules" that I like to go by is that once we've bid our suit three times, any double is for penalty. What could we be taking out into, realistically speaking?

So, what to do? Partner has 8-10 hcp and exactly three spades. He will never try to get a penalty in this situation knowing that our side has 10 spades. It's likely that partner has a relatively balanced hand, too, because with a singleton anywhere, he's going to bid 4♠ if he's at the max end of his box (5-10).

How many hearts do they have? Almost certainly nine. With a stiff (as noted), partner would have bid 4 himself (or passed). 

How many tricks to we have cashing? At most one spade and maybe a club. Partner should have a couple of sure tricks and maybe a third if he has AJ in, say, diamonds. Are we getting rich? At the very most, we might get 500 but 200 is more likely. Can we make game our way? Does partner have the spade ace? I think it's doubtful. With that card, and six points on the outside, I think double is an unlikely call. The spade ace will, essentially, be a bit of a waste, defensively speaking, given our own strong bidding in spades. 

What about "the law?" The strength appears to be well balanced between the two sides which is important for the law. We don't have a pure hand with good shortness (can't count the diamond queen for both), so it's possible that the law will be off a bit. Maybe 18 tricks instead of 19? If this is the case, and if it turns out that both sides can make exactly nine tricks, we should defend. What are the other possibilities (using my guesses for the probabilities)?

• 20 total tricks (15% likely):
• Both sides make game: par score +620 (pull)
• We make an overtrick, they an undertrick: +650 (pull)
• They make the overtrick: par score -650 (pull--unless we want to be -990)
• 19 total tricks (50% likely):
• We make an overtrick: par score +650 (pull)
• We make game: par score +620 (pull)
• They make game: par score -200 (pull)
• They make an overtrick: par score -650 (pull as before)
• 18 total tricks (30% likely):
• We make game: par score +620 (pull)
• Neither side makes game: par score +200 (pass)
• They make game: par score -500 (pull as before).
• 17 total tricks (5% likely):
• We make game: par score +800 (pass)
• We go down one: par score +500 (pass)
• We go down two: par score +200 (pass).

Just looking at the probabilities and following the LOTT, it looks like we want to pass 15% of the time and pull 85% of the time. 

Let's go back to partner's double. In the old days, we could distinguish between tentative penalty doubles and stand-up-on-your-chair-and-slam-the-red-card-down doubles (just kidding, of course). Is partner's double an absolute final decision? No, how can it be? The opponents have bid 4♥ strongly. They're not kidding around so they think they have a play for it. If partner has a heart trick coming, it must be available on offense, too. Why has partner doubled and not bid 4S himself? For the reasons given above: each side might have only nine tricks available, we almost certainly have to lose a spade and, likely, two hearts. Do we have the rest? Partner isn't sure. Basically, in this context, his "penalty" double simply says "I think this is our hand, I have a balanced hand, and they are probably going down." After all, it's very unlikely that opener is going to bid voluntarily again after this sequence. In other words, this is a classic POD situation.

It's decision time. Is there anything partner doesn't know about our hand that would justify pulling? Yes! We have a seventh spade! 

Partner's (my) hand: ♠T97 ♥J4 ♦AT63 ♣AT98. Leading the ♦A or underleading a club would result in down two for 500 and a 45% board. Leading our suit should have resulted in 200 and a 28% board. Neither of these would be total disasters. As it happened, we didn't set the contract, resulting in a 0% board.

So, there were 18 total tricks on the board. Not playing double-dummy defense would have resulted in 19 total tricks. 

What can go away?

In general, the play of a bridge hand is a race between the declarer trying to set up enough tricks to make his contract and the defenders trying to their tricks first. It's a bit more obvious what's going on in a no-trump contract, but the principle remains the same.

Most declarers start out with a number of losers that they have to reduce to a particular allowable number. Of course, you may prefer to think of establishing winners instead--particularly in a no-trump contract. Some techniques such as finessing and squeezing are mostly concerned with establishing winners as opposed to decreasing the number of losers. Henceforth in this article, I will be discussing loser-elimination in suit contracts.

We normally think about reducing the losers in the master hand--the one with the long trumps. However, in a dummy reversal, the master hand is the one with the shorter trumps and the "dummy" is the one with longer trumps. Sometimes, the designation of master/dummy is somewhat arbitrary when the suit lengths are equal. Obviously, the location of the actual declarer (and that of the face-up hand) is irrelevant here. There are two primary techniques to eliminate losers from (the master) hand: ruffing, i.e. trumping losers in dummy, and discarding them on dummy's winners. A cross-ruff is a hybrid strategy: ruffing hand's losers in dummy and dummy's losers in hand. There's one other hybrid strategy and I'm not sure it has a name: it consists of discarding dummy's losers in suit A on hand's winners in suit B and then ruffing hand's losers in suit A in dummy. I'm just going to call this technique the hybrid plan and note that it's unusual.

Anyway, where am I going with all of this? It's because I believe that the major strategy for the defenders of suit contracts consists of two different tactics: (1) getting their own ruffs; and (2) figuring out what can go away, and ensuring that those potential tricks don't disappear before they can establish them. Along the way, of course, they will be cashing winners and switching leads as appropriate to best attack suits. Although I figured this out long ago, I still make the same mistakes of allowing tricks to disappear. But you shouldn't ever let it happen!

Here's an example from a recent BBO speedball tournament:

Kim, my favorite partner in all things including bridge, did well to put me on lead at T2. What should I switch to? Given the dummy, I diagnosed that the safest would be diamonds. But I forgot to ask "What can go away?" Based on the auction, any tricks we had coming in diamonds couldn't go away. That was declarer's second suit. It had to be at least four cards long since she didn't have four spades. But it might be longer. In that case, there was a danger that one (or two) of dummy's clubs might go away. A switch to clubs at trick 3 was the proper defense. Declarer could still make the contract but it wouldn't have been quite so easy. Unfortunately, many of our teammates didn't do so well as our opponents and we ended up with only 37% on this board. We still had a 73% session but +50 on this board would have put us into first place.  

When to play "real bridge"

People are fond of enumerating the differences between IMPs (or total points) and matchpoints. True, there are lots of differences, although there are more similarities. Good bridge is good bridge and bad bridge is... well you know the answer.

This article is about the play, not the auction. Much of the difference between forms of scoring manifests itself in the auction. Once we get to the play, the differences are fewer. Oh, but don't they say that you should always try for overtricks at matchpoints? No, they don't.

In a team game, you are in what I call "real bridge" mode.  As developed by Vanderbilt, the idea behind contract bridge is that, once you're playing a particular contract, you must devote every effort to making (or defeating) it. You stop worrying about better contracts that you might have been in. And you take absolutely no risks for over (or under) tricks. If you're on defense and you have the setting trick, you cash it!

But, when you're playing matchpoints, it's tempting to go all out for overtricks all the time. That's not right. Here's where you try for overtricks: when you're in a contract that you judge most others will be in. In that case, you need to strive for the maximum possible number of tricks, even if that risks you going down. However, the majority of contracts are not like that. I'd like to talk about the contracts where you should not play for overtricks.

Basically, it's any time you're in an unusual contract. Let's take the most obvious example first: the contract was doubled. Once you're doubled, overtricks essentially no longer count. Even if you're only in, say, 1NTX not-vulnerable, if you make it, you will beat anyone undoubled making two, or three no-trump. However, if you think that a more normal contract is 3NT making three (and you forgot to redouble), then taking nine tricks will only score 380 (580 if vulnerable). You actually need to make 10 tricks to beat the others making nine tricks. But this is an unusual situation. Normally, the bonus for the insult and the "odd" tricks counting double will render one or two overtricks pure "gravy."

Another exception is when you're in a doubled contract and you're expecting to go down but are making a sacrifice. Now you have a precise target, which makes it a lot more like you are trying to "make" a "contract", albeit two or three tricks fewer than the nominal contract.

Other competitive situations are very much more like "real bridge." Imagine that you are defending 3S after your side competed to 3H. In other words, you pushed them into 3S. Nobody doubles so it might seem that this should fall into the "normal" contract category. Not so. You can't be sure what will happen at the other tables but you can be sure there will be some playing 2S their way and some playing 3H (maybe even 2H) your way. You might argue that, if 2H or 3H is making, and the opponents are vulnerable, you will need a two-trick set to restore equity. But you can't be sure that you actually had equity of 140. You surely didn't have 110 because the opponents can easily outbid you in 2S.

It's a cardinal rule of bridge that you must assume that you are in the right contract, whether declaring or defending. In other words, trust your bidding judgment. This is because, if we assume the converse, that we messed up in the auction, then it's really unlikely that we can recover our error in the play. Therefore, defending 3S is the proper place to be and there should be a big difference between -140 and +100. So, let's assume that you are offered the setting trick against 3S. DO NOT DUCK IT! If ducking gets you an extra trick for 200, then technically, you were in the wrong contract. You should have been defending 3SX.

But more often than not, a one-trick set will be enough: at least to stay average, which is what you should aim for on a hand like this.

Do I follow my own advice? Of course not! I ducked the setting trick just the other day thinking I could get 200 or at least I'd end up with the same 100. I was wrong. I ended up with a very poor-scoring -140. A bottom, in other words. So, I will plead the fifth: I refuse to incriminate myself by a hand diagram.

There are a few other situations where you should play "real bridge" in a matchpoint tournament. An example is when you bid a slam, especially if it's a hard-to-reach slam. Unless you're playing in an NABC pairs event, half the field won't bid even the most obvious slam. So, don't risk your slam for the overtrick that you think you might be able to get. You already won this board in the auction. Just sit back and collect.

Other strange contracts like 2NT, 5NT, a non-competitive 4 of a minor, even a 2C contract, are all sufficiently unusual that you should probably just ensure your contract.

Four red flags

In a recent ACBL robot tournament on BBO, I was faced with this decision on the last board:

To overcall or not to overcall? That is the question. I see four red flags here:

• the vulnerability;
• poor suit, poor shape;
• partner is a passed hand;
• three losers in opener's suit.

Let's discuss these in a bit more depth:

The first and most obvious is that we are red and they are white. If I'm wrong when I bid 2D, it could be very expensive while even being right won't likely gain very much.

The second and almost equally obvious problem is that our diamond suit isn't very good--we're supposed to have six for this bid, right? And we have the worst possible shape for an overcall: 5332. And we're missing the J, 9 and 8, any of which would be potentially useful cards in this suit.

Third, and a factor to which many players pay insufficient attention: partner is a passed hand. It's possible that we have a game, but it's against the odds. With this being a robot ("best hand"), then we know that no player has a 14 point hand. So, the remaining 26 points are probably more or less equally distributed, with a preponderance in the East hand (recall that he is a third-seat opener). And, if partner has a decent hand with a diamond fit, the opponents will probably be able to outbid us in a major suit.

Fourth is a factor which I learned long ago from Howard Piltch. Never make a questionable overcall with three losers in the opener's suit. "That's how you get dropped from a team," I recall him saying. Even Qxx isn't much better than xxx when your LHO leads the suit and it goes K, A, ruff.

I therefore eschewed the overcall. When my left-hand opponent bid 2D, I breathed a sigh of relief. Eventually, they made it to 4S which drifted off a trick so I ended up +50.

It was a small tournament (six playing this board) and four of the other five chose to overcall. Predictably, this was followed by pass, pass, double, all pass. At each of those tables, the West robot chose a very strange card (the 8) with which to ruff the second heart trick and the declarers escaped for -200 when it should have been -500. So, we two passers gained 4.8 IMPs, the overcallers lost 2.4 IMPs.

Here's the whole hand:

The four overcallers were all experienced BBOers. What is it that makes them feel that 2D was the correct call? Or were they just unlucky? I think not.

Defensive coups in the trump suit

Recently, my partner Ethan Wood and I were the hapless victims of a clever defensive play by Andy Goodman, playing with Chris Compton:

The scene was the "Social Distancing Pairs," a side game in the first online regional tournament set up by the ACBL. We got to a good contract, 3♠ by South. Follow the play. At trick 4, Ethan took the percentage trump finesse (to the T9). Knowing that he was only "entitled" to one trump trick anyway, Andy realized that a little subterfuge might just get him two--and, more importantly perhaps--upset the timing of the whole hand. So, he won with the K, exiting with a heart (all the better to have the "winning" trump finesse taken a second time). Ethan played another spade towards his hand. When Chris followed low, there was still the J and 6 out against him. The jack was of course "known" to be in the East hand. Playing the T would "obviously" allow him to pick up the suit, whereas playing the queen (if he foresaw a problem) would in any case necessitate another finesse which, admittedly, could probably be achieved successfully assuming Chris had three hearts.

But, seriously, who in their right mind would play the queen (or ace) here?

Of course, Andy now disrupted the whole hand by putting Ethan again in dummy where a diamond could no longer be finessed. The result? 98% for them, 2% for us.

My own play in a friendly team match a couple of days ago was less spectacular but equally effective. Playing a team game with friends (I've made the players anonymous), I was faced with the situation of what looked like a cold contract by my RHO. In fact, he's making six. What could I do to disrupt things? Follow the play:

Again, declarer did something entirely normal. He could have made the contract with two overtricks at any time after my duck. When I did win the trump queen, the contract was still cold but I think declarer probably credited me with having started with Q972 in which case, he might end up down 2 if I had a fourth heart. I think what happened is that declarer was now off balance and, while he could have steadied himself by drawing both the last trumps, it can be hard to recover when all your earlier assumptions have been invalidated.

BTW, both sides missed 7NT on this hand but our teammates were in a safe 3NT for an 11 IMP gain.

An interesting hand at matchpoints

A hand came up in a BBO speedball which caused a dent in an otherwise decent session. First let's look at it from my (declarer's) point of view.

The opening lead is D9. There's really very little time in a speedball to ask (or consult) about lead conventions. East played the J and I won with the Ace. What do you think of your chances in this contract? Since West didn't lead a heart (presumably, he has the ace), we have a shot at making 12 tricks. Partner did the right thing however, in signing off in 4S with that wasted HK.

Still, that diamond lead is a bit awkward. My only entry to the dummy now is by ruffing the small diamond. But I can't now draw all the trumps before taking the club finesse. So, I took two rounds of trump and ruffed the diamond. Now, I took the club finesse. Good news: it won. Bad news: the trick was ruffed by West. Now, I had to lose to the CK too and just made my game. This was worth a paltry 30% of the board.

It turns out that the way to make five (or more) on this hand is to be either a) lucky; b) forgetful (or insanely optimistic); c) brilliant; d) playing double-dummy. Needless to say, I was none of those. With 128 tables in the event, you can imagine that there were all sorts of results, but the vast majority of the NS pairs were in 4S.

At one table which also received a diamond lead, declarer didn't worry about that losing diamond, drew trumps, took the club finesse a couple of times and conceded two red cards. At many other tables, declarer was fortunate to receive the lead of HA. Now, there's no excuse for not making six (although many such declarers still only made five).

I mentioned that you can make 5 playing double-dummy. How so? Well, since we know we have to lose a heart anyway, how about playing a heart up after drawing two rounds of trump (or playing the HK after ruffing the diamond)? Now, South has no choice but to draw any remaining trumps and try to drop a singleton CK. It won't work but at least he doesn't suffer a ruff.

Interesting hand.

Count

My favorite partner and I decided to support our local clubs with the ACBL "Black Point" game on BBO. Entry is $5 each (many clubs in the US only charge $5 per pair, although in the Boston area it's usually $10-12). It takes 2 full hours to play 18 boards so it's excruciatingly slow.

But a couple of things came up that were perhaps worth the entry fee.

While, I've known the mechanism (and name) of "Last train" for a long time, it had never actually come up before in the heat of battle--at least not knowingly. Here it was in the flesh. We got to a decent 6S contract (made even more decent by getting a club lead).

The second thing that came up is that it turns out that we don't play the same count signals (and haven't done for several years, it seems).  We play UDCA, as I do with almost all of my partners, but once a suit has been broken, we play present count, right? But do we play present count upside down or right-way-up? Turns out that all the "good" players play it right-side-up. What about you?

The importance of being earnest

The importance of being earnest in your discards cannot be over-emphasized. The title of course comes from the play of that name by Oscar Wilde. But the point I wish to make is that, when dummy (or declarer) has a long running suit, the defenders have to announce the suits they will guard and stick to that plan earnestly.

Here's a hand that came up at the club (matchpoints):

At my table, I opened 2NT in second seat and partner raised to 3NT. Clearly, with the insight of double-dummy, North should lead out his hearts from top to bottom and achieve a +100 score.

But let's say North figures that establishing his longest and strongest suit (with two side entries) is the proper thing to do and leads a low spade. This is what happened at several tables and most of us took all of the tricks for 720.

But it shouldn't have happened that way. There are only eleven top tricks and, providing that the defenders don't get mixed up, there's actually no squeeze, whether single, double or triple.

North must realize that the most his partner can hold is two or three points. Unless West was Zach Grossack or Harrison Luba, for example, in which case South could easily hold four or five points ;)

Let's say that declarer calls for dummy's king which wins and then crosses to the CA. What can South hold? The club king? Seems unlikely because declarer might have cut himself off from those clubs by taking away dummy's entry. By the way, do you see how important it is (usually) to play the highest card from hidden equals? It causes the opponents to be less than 100% sure where the lower equal (the king in this case) actually is.

So, probably declarer has the king. Then, what useful card could South possibly hold? The heart queen? Or maybe he has only the jack. Either way, North can immediately see that the one suit he must guard is diamonds. He will have to make six discards on the clubs: when the clubs are finished, he will have five cards left: three diamonds and two others. But, unless he keeps a small heart and/or a small spade, he can be end-played into leading away from his queen of diamonds. So, he must choose: keep a high heart or a high spade. Which card is South more likely to hold: ST or HQ? at this point, it's a bit of a toss-up. But North doesn't have to decide just yet.

At this point, proper technique by declarer against expert defenders would be to cash the two top diamonds and hope for a squeeze to materialize. But against defenders who discard more or less randomly, it's probably better to just run the clubs (which is what I did).

So, when declarer plays the CK, North must immediately signal which suit he will guard or, if that's impossible, to start showing which suit(s) he will not guard. Regardless of the carding scheme by defenders, North has an appropriate diamond to discard. The other players follow suit. On the small club at trick four, North will have to play a neutral spade (the five, assuming that he started with the three). South now must decide which suit he will guard. It doesn't matter which he chooses on this hand, as long as he sticks with it. Let's say that he discards an encouraging heart. Now, North can throw that other small spade, thus confirming that he will guard diamonds and spades. The important point is that, although it's possible that the defenders may already have made an error, they must stick with the plan. In this scenario, one error might cost an extra trick. But switching plans will likely cost two tricks.

North will immediately throw the two high hearts and the SQ (implying the J). South will pitch all of his diamonds and two more hearts. Although it takes guts for North to jettison two high hearts, he should remember that when he has most of his side's assets, the little exit cards can be as precious as the high cards.

Declarer is helpless. He will end up losing a diamond and the last spade. And all because N/S were careful to formulate a plan and stick with it.