Answer to Double Dummy Problem

November 22nd, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

In this problem from You Have To See This (by Andrew Diosy and me)

The contract was 4♥ and the question was should you play or defend.

The opening lead was the ♣Q, overtaken with the ♣K and won in the South hand with the ♣A.

First, what happened to Helen Sobel.  At the other table her opponent drew trump in three rounds and played the diamonds from the top.  West won the ◊K and switched to a spade.  South needed to use the ◊J to discard a spade (or he would have 4 losers) but the only way to dummy was on a trump.  After taking the spade discard he still had to set up a club trick and he was now open to a force in spades and went down.  Helen tried a craftier play.  She led the ◊Q out of her hand at trick two.  When her opponent switched to a spade Helen was able to win the spade return, cash the ◊A and then play three rounds of trump ending in dummy.  Now she could take her spade discard and still have control of the hand.  Helen made the hand and that was how it was written up in 1998.

However the hand cannot be made on best defence.  After Helen concedes the ◊Q, West plays two more rounds of clubs, allowing East to discard a diamond and then get a diamond ruff from West.

So the answer to the question is: You would rather defend this hand.

It seems obvious to me now.  It is a warning that when you analyze hands to see if the hand could be made (or could be defeated) it is easy to miss something.  It is probably even easier to miss something when you are out drinking and discussing hands after the game!

Thank You for …. (and a double dummy problem for you)

November 21st, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

It is getting close to American Thanksgiving.  In Canada we give thanks about a month earlier.  So I have been thinking about what I am thankful for in a bridge sense.  Here goes.

I am thankful that I have had the opportunity to play for Canada on a Women’s teams.  I hadn’t realized how special it is to be part of a team.

I am thankful that I have had a chance to play with some great players.  But, my favourite partner of all is my son Colin.   He is a great player, an innovative bidder and a wonderful partner and the father of two grandchildren.  Here is a picture of Jessica, his daughter who is 2.

Colin and I are currently building a bidding system and practising on BBO in a bidding room.   I am even started to appreciate the parts of the system we have built.  When we started out I was confused about what to do with all the bids that are now available to opener who is know to have a limited hand.  What was a jump shift, what was a jump rebid in a suit etc.  I hadn’t realized that limiting opener’s hand had so many ripples through the system.  

Playing four card majors with canape has a lot of other ripples.  One good thing is that we don’t need to deal with hands that have short diamonds and no five card major.  We rarely have to open a diamond on a hand with two of them and this would only occur on a hand where we were under our notrump range and hand 3-3-2-5.  It is an interesting new world we are exploring. 

Jeff Smith asked me if we want to practice against him and I would like to do so fairly soon.  But first (especially against Jeff) we need to work out what to do against competition.  We did some practising with forcing club before and bids directly over one club are not so bad, but since some of our responses are a bit ambiguous, subsequent preempting might be more problematic.  So if you want to see the Smith-Thurston combo take on the Lee’s,  you might have a chance to check us out on BBO in a few weeks (if we can organize a common starting time).

I also had a chance to revisit There Must Be A Way, a book that I co-authored with Dr. Andrew Diosys, a Toronto physician in 1998.  He had collected some wonderful bridge problems.  His idea was to give you a deal, double dummy and ask if you would rather play or defend.  This was a rather new approach at this time.  I liked the problems a lot (I love bridge problems) and I got to analyze them and write up the solution.  

In 1999 Gene Benedict from Toledo Ohio sent in a letter with some issues in the analysis of two of the hands.   He was correct (although only one of the problems was serious).  Sadly this book is out of print but we are going to make it available in a downloadable ebook sometime soon.  So finally after all these years I got to fix up the problems and I was reminded that the whole thing was made so much easier by Deep Finesse.  So, as a bridge author and book publisher:

Thank you for Deep Finesse and thank you for all the readers who take the time to send in comments, corrections and suggestions about our books. 

Here is the problem for you that I corrected today.   Would you rather Play or Defend on this hand which was played by Helen Sobel in 4♥?  You get the lead of the ♣Q and East overtakes with the ♣K.  (At the table West opened 2◊, a good weak two bid.)

Answer soon.

Thanks to astute reader Roy Hughes who pointed out to me that I had originally left out the contract from the blog!

More Bridge Memorabilia

November 16th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I wanted to post an example of a Milton Work Lucky Strike Cigarette card to show Nick some more bridge goodies from the past, in responses to his post

Nick’s blog

  I collected some of these at one time. 

There is a bridge problem associated with each card (along with a different pretty girl).  Each side represents a hand and you play the deal by bending over the appropriate card for each player.  There is an expert commentary by Milton Work.

By the way Nick, when I just wandered in to Ray’s office I noticed his screen saver was a gorgeous picture of Sydney harbour at night we took when we were together for dinner.  I think this is interesting because this is my screen saver.

What a beautiful city you live in.

Guest Blogger from South Africa

November 16th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Neil Hayward, a bridge teacher in South Africa, contacted us for a little bit of help with this intriguing project.  You Ray and I were happy to meet Neil’s requests:

Let me know if you want to contact Neil and I will be happy to provide his email address.

………………………………………………………………..

Neil’s Blog

…………………………………………………………………

Bridge teaching and the preservation of one of Africa’s most magnificent animals are not normally two things that would form an association in your mind. However, I read in a local newspaper in Cape Town about the rescue of a wounded leopard in the northern parts of the Cape, which required co-operation between a vet and the Cape Leopard Trust.

That triggered off an idea, based on the fact that I hold quarterly duplicate tournaments in Cape Town for my students: I could use the money left from their entry fee, after deducting expenses, to donate to the Cape Leopard Trust.

I have a third tournament lined up soon to raise the balance of the money needed to buy a specialised camera to be placed in the mountainous wilds near to Oudtshoorn (if you do not know this town, you will find it in your atlas).

The idea is to use images of leopards captured on the camera to reach a more accurate understanding of leopard numbers and the movement of individuals (rosette-like markings captured on film are used for identification, rather as human finger-prints are). Once there is a scientific understanding of the movement of individuals, the Cape Leopard Trust can co-operate with farmers in the area to reduce the degree of persecution of the leopard — always a problem when predator and livestock share a geographical area.    

All of which makes one think about a book written by Jeremy Flint entitled Tiger Bridge. We have just created a variation on that theme.

………………………………end of Neil’s blog………………………….

For more information about The Cape Leopard Trust

Cape Trust

You can adopt a leopard among other things.  Here is a picture of Martha

Developing a lot of empathy for bridge students

November 12th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

In the last few days I have been working on learning two different systems.  My friend and bridge expert, Mary Paul sent me ten pages of notes describing her bidding approach.  I am used to hundreds of pages of notes so you wouldn’t have thought that would be a problem.  But many of her concepts and structures are different than I am used to.  This means I need to work through exactly what she means and what all of the implications are. 

At the same time my son Colin and I have gone back to a forcing club system.  It is being developed on the fiy.  It is as complex and different as it could possibly be.  We have now decided to play canape and four card majors with many artificial continuations.

Working from minimal notes and Colin’s brief verbal explanation we tried to bid hands.  I spent the whole time having no idea what the auctions meant and no idea what I was supposed to bid on a hand.  I would look through the minimal notes Colin had sent and it seemed never find what I wanted (sometimes it was there somewhere and sometimes it was missing).

So I know understand the problems faced by my mentee, Kathy.   I know what is like to have no idea what you are supposed to do and no idea what the auction means as I am learning new concepts.  It isn’t easy. 

Kathy and I need to document “our” bidding system.  I am going to start a system book for us.  (Wow, that will be the third set of notes I am writing).  It is a lot easier when you have something to refer to that has the answers written clearly.

And even with notes it can be hard to realize just what the auction actually means, what all the implications are and what you should do now.  This is not about knowing how to play or having the judgment to decide whether to make a game try or push for slam.  This is about learning a new language.

After this I should be able to play most constructive systems.  But if you want to play another new system with me, don’t call me I will call you.

Remembrance Day and remembering old friends too

November 11th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

It is just about the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month and I am thinking about those who gave their lives for our freedom and security.  When I was in school we would always have an assembly and recited the poem In Flander’s Field.

I am too young to remember any war before Vietnam, a war that Canadians watched.  But John Kennedy was part of my youth and I do remember the hope he brought to the world.  I do hope that President Obama will provide the world with the same light.

Ask what you can do for your country

I can’t help but remember old friends at the same time.  I remember a wonderful lady named Irene Hodgson.  Irene brought me back into serious competitive bridge when she asked me to play in the Canadian trials in 2004.  (Boy was my hair short.)

Irene was the master of table action.  We filled out a minimal convention card and needed no system notes.  Irene and Mary Paul played a lot of bridge together over the years.  I was thinking about Irene after this hand yesterday from a team game I played with Mary. 

Sitting East, in second chair with nobody vulnerable I held:

—

QJ98762

4

KJ1083

North passed and I suppose the “normal” bid might be 4 and I would have done that in first chair.  But then I started to think that this hand would be powerful in clubs too and well I passed.  The auction continued:

Mary	North	Linda	South
	pass	pass	1
1	3*	?

Now I had a big headache.  I wanted to get hearts into play.  It seemed simplest to just bid 4 but the problem was that in this auction it seems to me that has to show a spade tolerance at least.  After all I didn’t open 4.  I could think of nothing better to do pass and hope it would work out.  My mother told me to open 4 on these hands.  South was not done and bid 3NT.  He must have about 19 HCP.  And this was passed back to me.  Now it was time for me to remember Irene and bid 4.  This was the kind of thing she did all the time and it always seemed to work for her.  (She had oodles of table presence).  I knew that Mary who had so much experience with Irene and others would have no trouble knowing what to do.  

South thought for a long time but his 19 HCP almost all in aces and kings was too much for him and he doubled.  I made only 5!  Here was the whole hand (rotated).

	Mary
	KQ1097
	A10
	986
	Q76
A632		J854
K3		54
AKJ10		Q7532
A92	Linda	54
	—
	QJ98762
	4
	KJ1083

Book Review – This book is so funny it got a little wet

November 10th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  4 Comments 

I kept hearing for days about how funny Frank Vine’s book North of the Master Solvers’ Club was.

George Retek called to say he loved it and ordered about sixteen for Christmas presents.  (He already made the joke about how he actually did have sixteen friends).  John Carruthers asked for another one when he soaked his in the bath tub.  One of the proof readers said it was the best bridge book he had ever read and so on….

So I broke down and read it.  I started reading it in a chair in the family room and somehow it followed me around for the rest of the evening and right into the bath tub (well it didn’t actually hop in but it did get a bit splashed).  It was one of those books.  I even coerced Ray into reading me one of the stories just before I went to sleep.

I would read the introduction to each story and think, “this one won’t work or finally one I won’t like” and I would come to a place where I just laughed out loud.  There was just something special about the writing. 

Frank Vine was a Canadian bridge player (and a very good one too) who died around twenty years ago.  He wrote humorous fictional stories about bridge, often making a point while making us laugh.   When I read them they could have been written yesterday.

Sometimes they made me laugh out loud.  I loved the story “Wednesday the Rabbi played bridge”.  All the men will feel for the rabbi who has to play bridge with his wife who yells at him the whole time while making mistake after mistake.  I won’t ruin the story for you.  It is very good.  But I will say that perhaps the Rabbi should have remembered he was playing with Mrs. Guggenheim and been a bit less the unlucky expert. 

If you need some more confidence you will especially enjoy “The Man from La Mancha” where a young women learns a thing or two about spirit and bridge, after a game with a special man.  She has use of a Panic Button which provides some cryptic help just when she needs it most.  Maybe that is a good image I can use when I need it.

Sometimes they made me think and laugh.  For a great story that subtlely suggests that all may not have been on the up and up with some Italian teams you can laugh your way through “The Curse of the Blue Team”.

Every story is good, every deal is good, the writing is good, the parodies are good.  You can’t help laughing and learning at the same time.  Let see. “How many bridge friends are on my Christmas list”?

(A lot of these stories were previously published in The Bridge World.)

Playing with Mary

November 7th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

I am starting to play some bridge with Mary Paul.  You may not know Mary so let me describe her. 

Mary’s most noticeable characteristic used to be her bright red hair but sources tell me that Mary’s colour has gotten quieter recently.  Mary herself however is just the same.  She has a wonderful sarcastic wit. 

Mary is one of the best women bridge players I know.  With considerable success in Open and Women’s events.  I have written about her previously.  She was the author of a Master Point Press book, now out of print called Partnership BIdding, which helped players to discuss and document their agreements.  In fact the trophy which is given to Canada’s Venice Cup team is called the Mary Paul trophy.

She has the distinction of representing Canada in both Open and Women’s event, being part of the Open team that played in Biarritz in 1982. 

The WBF website had her placing 6th in the Senior Pairs in the Montreal open world championships but … see Mary’s comment

Fred Gitelman wrote a story featuring Mary Paul playing with Dave Colbert against Fred playing with Geoff Hampson.

Would you rather by lucky or good?

We played a team game on BBO today and it was interesting and a lot of fun.  We had about 1 minute for system discussions.  Mary had sent me some notes but I couldn’t open the Word Perfect file.

I missed something during the auction.  My hand:

We were vulnerable against not and Mary opened 1◊.  My LHO, East bid 1♠ and I made a negative double.  I think most of you will agree with that auction.  Everyone bid after that:

What do you like here?  Ray thinks I should have doubled to say I had some cards and no clear bid.  What do you think?  Anyway I passed, West was done and Mary bid 3♣.  An advantages of passing was I now knew Mary had a five-card club suit.  My hand did seem a lot better and even though I don’t like bidding again when partner competes I think it is right on this hand to bid game.  I just missed the wrong on-the-way bid.   I bid 5♣ and I should have bid 4♥.  That would have given her a choice in case she had a three-card heart suit.

We were lucky and we made 5♣ anyway but 4♥ would have been much better.

Mary had

The wimps in the other room played in part-score.

Perhaps the most exciting hand was this one where an expert opponent failed to see the right line to make 5♠ redoubled.

East-West Vulnerable

 * Michaels

I have rotated the hands for convenience.

You get a heart lead.  What is your plan?

………………………….

The first problem is what is my minor suit?  Mary didn’t double on trump or on heart cards so it seems to me that she has to have the top diamonds.  There really isn’t anything else.  So I am likely to have club length.  You need two entries to set up and cash the diamonds so one of them will have to be the ♠K.

You can afford to play a couple of rounds of trump.  (They break 3-1) but then you need to lead the You need to go after diamonds early.  You are going to have to use the ◊Q.  After the opponents win a diamond honour and cash a heart you regain the lead.  Cross to dummy with the ♠K, drawing the last trump and run the ◊J.  This will provide a discard for your long club.  This is one of those hands where finding the right line is worth a bushel of imps.  Going one down costs you 14 imps while making it is worth 12 imps to you.  (They made +650 in the other room).

An interesting Defence

November 7th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Colin and I have been playing quite well in the last few days and everything seems simple and easy.  But there always is the one that got away.  I think Colin did quite well on this hand.  I thought too much.  But perhaps either of us could have….

White on red I held this hand in fourth seat.

It all started off with a complex auction,

North made a strange bid especially at the vulnerability.  1NT was natural showing a near opening bid.  Let’s call it suicide notrump.  I have a flat weak hand and I want to bid opposite a passed partner at unfavourable vulnerability.  Okay then.

Colin’s dbl was penalty and in this case showed a decent pass.  I would guess about 10 points.  My pass set up a forcing pass situation.  Colin’s double of 2♥ suggested he did not have a clear penalty double (he would pass) but he was prepared to play there (or he would bid).  I passed with some trepidation.

Colin led the ♠J and this was dummy:

I ducked the spade and declarer won the ♠K and play a heart to dummies ♥7 and my ♥9.   Since I could overruff the dummy I played the king and jack of diamonds.  Colin won the ◊A and switched to a spade.  I won the ♠A and this was the situation.

It couldn’t hurt to lay down the ♣A and see what happened.  Colin played the ♣J playing upside down carding.  What should I do?  I knew Colin had ♥Kxx.   Declarer pretty well had to have the ♣K and if Colin did have the ♣K it was KJ doubleton or he would have encouraged.  It can’t hurt to play a spade back.

I should lead a spade and Colin would make his king and then a diamond would promote my trump queen.  Besides declarer really had to have the ♣K to come close to his bid.  Doh! 

+200 wasn’t a bad score but we could have got +500 and really made declarer pay for his bidding.  This was the whole hand.

The strange events last night on BBO

November 6th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

I played bridge with Colin last night on BBO.  The first part of the evening we had a very nice session of bridge against quite good opponents especially a chap with called “pshvarts”.     After 16 boards he left.  He was replaced by a nice fellow who it soon became clear was not a strong player lets’s call him Mr Newby.  Mr. Newby was not conversant with fairly common bidding conventions. Our other opponent lets call him, Mr.  Wantowin, had only been with us for a few hands.  We had a couple of good results which might have been irritating to him when this situation come up.  I do not have the exact hand because we never played it but here it is from my memory.

With no-one vulnerable, Colin opened 1NT (12-14) and Mr. Wantowin bid 2◊.  I had the worst hand for this auction I had something like this

♠ 5 ♥ A1043 ◊ K104 ♣ Q5432

I want to compete but I have some problems.

I have no way to find out if partner has hearts without forcing to game.  I can’t make a negative double without spades (we don’t actually play this but even if we did…).  My clubs aren’t wonderful but I decided the most pragmatic thing to do was just to play 3♣ and hope it was right.  So I bid 2NT (Lebensohl) and so alerted.  Mr. Newby asked in the open what Lebensohl was and both Colin and I answered.  We both said more or less the same thing, “it asked the notrump bidder to bid clubs.”  I suppose in retrospect we might have added that there were a number of things that could happen after that. 

Mr. Newby passed and Colin bid 3♣ which was passed out.  This looked like a below average board for us because Colin had both clubs and hearts and we can make a heart game.  The opponents probably can make a partial in either of the other two suits. 

Before making the opening lead Mr. Wantowin started to send me messages.  He was incensed about our explanation of Lebensohl.  He kept saying shame on you.  I repeated what he said in the clear and asked what his problem was.  I was very polite and would have been happy to skip the board.  He just kept sending me “flame” messages. Things like you are “not very nice” and “shame on you”.  I kept asking him what his problem was and offering to help.  I just didn’t understand the problem. 

Should we have done something different?  Did we do something wrong?   Does anyone have any suggestions about how to defuse the situation, I tried humour, being conciliatory, apologizing (well I am Canadian).