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.

Elementary deception

Continuing my series on common beginner mistakes, I want to talk about perhaps the most elementary case of deception, or hiding your assets, in bridge.

But, first, let's look at a hand. Matchpoints, all vulnerable, you are in fourth seat holding: ♠K962 ♥KQ ♦2 ♣KT7654. Partner opens 1♣, playing more or less standard methods, you bid 1♠ and partner raises to 2♠. What now? You have a decent 11-count with a side singleton and a double fit. I presume you aren't planning to pass. Make your plan:

• invite game?
• bid game?
• invite slam?

Have you made up your mind? Is there anyone out there who's going to invite slam? It seems a stretch to me given that partner raised only to 2♠. But, I suppose it's possible: ♠AQxx ♥xx ♦Axx ♣Axxx. Of course, many would have already upgraded this perfect hand to 1NT, especially if non-vulnerable. If the black suits split favorably, you have twelve easy tricks. Or, if there's a stiff quack in the clubs, you might still be able to pick up the suit. But, presumably, if you were making a slam try, you would bid 4♦ to simultaneously establish a game-force (with slam aspirations) and to let partner know that any lower honors in diamonds would be wasted. With the perfecto sample hand given, you would bid 5♣ and partner should take it from there.

I'm sure you would simply raise to 4♠. But, suppose for a moment, that you decided to invite game. How would you go about it? I assume you would bid 3♣ and then pass whatever partner decided on. But, couldn't you have your cake and eat it too? Why not use the good old three-way invitation? Bid 3♣ and if partner bids 3♠ immediately (or passes) you'll play it there. If he bids 4♠, all well and good. But if he thinks for a bit and then bids 3♠ he's obviously got some sort of intermediate hand and now you can raise to 4♠. Sound like a plan?

No! The laws of bridge expressly forbid you to take any inference from the manner in which partner makes his bid. You must act as if you were absent from the table during the period between LHO's pass and partner's bid. To use the jargon of the rule book, that information is unauthorized. When partner's bid is 3♠, you must respect his decision, however much soul-searching he/she might have gone through. Remember: you didn't see (or hear) any of it.

I only bring this up because it happened in a recent club game. A pair who certainly should know better had this exact auction and, guess what, the spade bidder raised to 4♠, making. Yes, I called the director but, despite the fact that the opponents didn't dispute the hesitation (that's the usual defense), the director ruled that the 4♠ was OK because "maybe he was looking for slam". Most tables played in 4♠, as you'd expect, although there were a few 3♠ and club contracts too. We got slightly below average for holding it to ten tricks (some declarers actually managed to go down in 4♠ although I don't see how that was possible).

OK, back to the real point of this blog.

The opening lead is a small diamond (fourth best) and dummy has K9. You play the 9 and RHO wins the J. The ♥9 comes back. Which card do you play?

Some of you, the ones this article is aimed at, will say it doesn't matter. The one nearest my thumb. Or, worse, you will automatically play the lower honor, the queen in this case. I see this mistake all the time. You are probably expecting LHO to have the ace and, therefore, it won't make any difference. When we played this hand, declarer played the queen and it won the trick. The RHO (moi) holding A98x, now knew that his partner did not hold the king and so I was able to work out exactly which cards declarer did hold. It really didn't matter in this case. There was no defense to set the contract. But why give the opponents that information? They don't deserve it!

A tale of two books

At a recent tournament, I was pleased to find two books that I hadn't seen before which interested me a lot.  One was Deceptive Defense: The Art of Bamboozling at Bridge by Barry Rigal.  The other was Bridge, Probability & Information by Robert F. MacKinnon.

The first of these is an excellent book, a must-read for anyone who wants to improve their game.  Whereas it's fun to pull off an advanced play such as a squeeze or endplay, it's even more fun to perpetrate a successful deception.  The look on the opponent's face is always worth it.

As a long-time student and enthusiast of probability theory as it applies to bridge, I've generally bought any book that I could find on the subject.  These range in quality from completely pointless (Frederick Frost's book) to totally brilliant (Kelsey and Glauert's Bridge Odds for Practical Players).  So, it was with great anticipation that I began reading MacKinnon's new book.  Especially given the allusion to information theory.  By the time I started to read the book a day or two later, I had seen a rave review in the ACBL Bridge Bulletin.

But I immediately found the style of the book somewhat annoying.  The book reads like a series of short essays on bridge probability.  They do not follow each other in logical order and each section is prefaced by a pithy, but typically totally irrelevant, quotation.  There are several really important concepts that MacKinnon puts forward.  But he seems to do so in such an off-hand manner, that the impact is very much lessened.  And he goes so far out of his way to ensure that the book does not read like a textbook that, where a little logical derivation of a result would be extremely helpful, it is usually missing entirely.  The author generally states these important results as facts or axioms without making it entirely clear how he derives the result.  The layout is not always as helpful as it might be, for example, the table he uses to demonstrate that the ratio of the number of combinations (and, therefore, probability) comes from the small number on the right divided by the large number on the left.  In this instance, the splits (large:small) are not aligned between the columns as suggested in the text.  Even the examples which he shows from actual play do not always seem to be entirely relevant to the ongoing argument.  I think that what this book craves most is a good editor.  The author definitely knows his stuff but, in my opinion, needs help in presentation.

This is definitely not a book for beginners, or even advanced players unless they have an abiding love of probability topics.  While it does "correct" some misconceptions suggested by other books, I do not think it will supplant Kelsey's book as the premier book on the topic.

Meanwhile, Rigal's book is, as always with this author, excellent.  It reads so well, and is sufficiently interspersed with relevant examples, that it is a hard to put down.  It concludes with a spectacular example of deceptive defense by the late great Maurice Harrison-Grey.  Grey's hand was ♠83 ♥9643 ♦AQ3 ♣KJ54.  His LHO opened 1D, partner bid 3S and RHO closed the auction with 3NT.  Grey led ♠8 and dummy tabled the following hand: ♠9 ♥AQT ♦KJ9852 ♣982.  Declarer held up his A until the third round (as the spade bidder could easily have held only six spades).  Put yourself in Grey's seat.  What do you discard on the third spade?  The hand went down one, by the way.

If you want to know the answer, you'll have to buy the book!  Or you could just ask me.