|
Seriously “Don’t forget that bridge is a
game to be enjoyed and it is more important that you do this than anything
else!” June/July 2010 Newsletter (to be continued) On
Tuesday 13th July, Seriously Social Bridge hosted the second
charity fundraiser for the year – this time for Combining your chances George
Cuppaidge July 2010 Getting the most out of
your cards is what bridge is all about, and finding the best way to combine
several chances to establish that often elusive contract making trick, is a
skill to work on. Ralph Parker, on the hand which follows, demonstrated that
this is a skill he is entirely familiar with in a quite unusual way. ♠86432 ♥J104 ♦KJ ♣A83 ♠K Q1095 ♥K7652 A98 ♦642 Q1095 ♣Q974 J6 AJ7 Q3 A873 K1052 The bidding S N 1C(1) 1S 1NT opening lead by West, H5 (1)
Why so many people
bid 1D with this shape continues to bemuse me. Why waste your own bidding
space? What response to 1C will give you a problem? The opening lead was
the H5 which East won with his ace to return the nine. West won and cleared
the suit with his two. This was not good play by West. The layout of the
heart suit is transparent to him at trick two so he should duck to preserve
communications. Declarer has six winners
and four certain losers in hearts, if West ever gets in. Superficially you either
play on diamonds or clubs for the seventh trick and, essentially if you go
for the wrong one, you will go down. In this hand both plays fail. The correct play here, in
the club suit, is to play the CK followed by a club to the ace. You are in
the right hand to play a club towards your ten if East began with your hoped
for, and likely on the play to date, Jxxx or Qxxx. Without the
C10 the diamond suit might be a better shot.
With five hearts on your left, however, that diamond finesse looks
worse than fifty-fifty. But Ralph saw something
else. At trick four he led a spade off dummy going up with the ace. Bingo! Of
course this could have been KQ doubleton but “Restricted Choice” decrees that
it will be singleton. Note also, that East with KQx
may have been tempted to split his honours. Had
nothing good happened, Ralph would most probably have gone for clubs as
offering the best chance and with the reasonable expectation that the
defenders could not untangle two spade tricks for themselves and cash the
hearts as well. As it was, he was able to
play a diamond to the jack, looking for an over trick. It lost of course but
in the fullness of time he was able to lead towards his SJ for that seventh
trick. Risky? Your call. When someone goes on holidays or is not available for a
while, his/her partner often decides not to play. This is such a pity as there are so many
people in the same boat. Don’t be a wuss. Take a
chance. Sometimes partnerships just don’t
work. Some feign illness,
declare that a close relative (including the family pet) is ill, stop playing
bridge altogether or for months at a time, or proffer endless excuses that
would test the patience of Job.
Apologies to anyone who does have a sick pet. An honest
“I don’t think we are on the same wave length” or “this is not working for
me”, is a more respectful approach. Talk to me if you need a bridge
partner. It is just a game of cards,
after all. Don’t worry about what people think, they
don’t do it very often. Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious. You should not confuse your career with your life. .
The only words
I can think of as we walked the Great Wall (besides the obvious “stupid
idea”, “I can’t go another step”) were that this was almost a spiritual
journey. You might ask? Well there are walls and there are
walls. This one was built 2,000 years
ago and when you walk it, something happens.
You cannot access the scale and beauty of this creation second
hand. You have to experience it. And we did. Also, you
cannot see This pic of Julie and I was not taken after the Great Walk but
after the Great Shop! Thank you Julie.
Special fund-raising
Event for Why In
developing countries there are more girls than boys out of school, more women
than men out of work, and women die needlessly from pregnancy related
diseases. Yet women and girls are part of
the solution to overcoming poverty and injustice. Women, more than men, transfer
improvements in their own lives into the lives of their children, families
and communities. If they have the
opportunity to gain an education, access health services, generate an income,
and take a lead in their community, women and girls will reinvest into their
community, creating lasting change.
Give more, enjoy life, love bridge Denise |
|
|
When partner leads a
“Nine” When partnering novices I ask them
not to lead nines (this is hard for them as they seem to love leading nines).
They ask, “but what if it’s my fourth highest?” Did you know there is no holding from which
a nine is fourth highest? Partner would lead an honour from any
of these holdings when defending no-trumps or a suit contract:*A-J-10-9,
K-Q-10-9, K-Q-J-9. Usually a nine
indicates a doubleton, singleton or top of nothing Why would partner lead the top
card from a suit without an honour? It’s to warn us we shouldn’t automatically
be returning the suit. Partner might
be leading a short suit because the opponents bid partner’s long suit. Or partner may he hoping to find your longest suit. * Lead the ace if you are defending a
suit contract. |
All this adage means is that when
you have a nine-card fit missing the queen, you should play the ace and king
first, hoping to drop the missing honour. DUMMY KJ92 DECLARER A10872 Play the ace and the king and hope
for the best! If, however, there are inferences from the bidding (say your
left hand opponent preempted 3♣, and you found yourself in a contract of 4♠
with the above trumps, then you would disregard the adage “Eight ever, nine
never” as the chances are your left hand opponent will be short in this
suit. You should cash the king first
and “run” the jack on the next round. |
|
Distinguishing
Penalty Doubles from Takeout Doubles
♠A95 ♥KQJ109 ♦AK8 ♣K3 If the
opposition opens 1NT in front of you, DOUBLE.
Since there are four unbid suits when the
opening bid is 1NT, using a double as takeout isn’t very practical. To have support for all four suits, you
would need a balanced hand and would be coming into an auction when the
opposition has already announced a strong balanced hand. On this hand a penalty double is a better
choice than overcalling 2H. You should
expect to defeat the contract at least one or two tricks after leading the
HK. The penalty should be more than
the score for making a partscore contract of 2H. |
If the
opponents bid 2S pass 4S
? and you hold: ♠KQ ♥AK6 ♦A1052 ♣AJ73 DOUBLE. One opponent has opened with a weak two bid
and based on your cards, it would appear his partner has bid 4S as a likely
preemptive raise, trying to make it difficult for you and your partner to
enter the auction. Since the
opponents are at the game level, your double is for penalties and you would
expect to take at least four or five tricks on defense. Partner would not “pull” the double by the
way. He would realise
this bid is for penalties, no matter how weak his hand. Extract from Audrey Grant’s Bridge Basics 2, “Competitive Bidding”.
See lessons to be held on this and other topics during the month of July 2010 |
|
A young George, left, playing against Omar Shariff
& his team
Bidding at bridge by George Cuppaidge, January 2010 “Bridge is a remarkable game and the sophisticated bidding phase
is the aspect that separates it from all other card games” The Positive Double, by George
Cuppaidge May 2010 George wants to do away with “negative”
doubles and has invested a considerable amount of time in creating “positive”
doubles. In his opinion, the negative
double does not describe, it does not ask and it does not limit the user’s
strength. Effectively it does nothing. A positive double? George thinks this double is such a useful, efficient tool
of bidding space that it should be used whenever possible. He proposes three basic situations:
Read on,
you will be surprised at how quickly you feel you can abandon “negative
doubles”. Does the
emperor have clothes? More specifically, does the universally played negative
double make any sense at all? Read what follows and make up your own mind. The
negative double is the double of an overcall of an opening bid, announcing to
partner that the doubler has “something” and accordingly
that the opener should bid “something.” Does the
negative double tell or ask? Well let
us examine, first what it tells. High
card strength. I have
seen it made on as few as 4 points, but no doubt competitive players from
time to time will invoke it with fewer, but let’s say 4+ points with no upper
limit. That’s a very unhelpful point range. Does the level of interference
make any difference? Well clearly it should but it seems, in general, that it
does not. If the bid is going to commit the partnership to the three-level or
above, surely the bid should promise game going values but experience shows
that it does no more than say that the partnership may have a playable
contract somewhere, albeit at the two-level or lower, especially if there is
no good fit. Fit. The
negative double says nothing on this score. It may be made on any hand with a
void in partner’s suit or huge fit with a four–card suit on the side that the
doubler wants to find four-card support for. Does a
retreat by the doubler, from the second, forced,
suit bid by opener back to his original suit show a big fit or simply an intolerance for that second suit? No doubt
established partnerships have agreements here but in general the answer is
moot. Length
in unbid suits. Ostensibly
the negative doubler promises four cards in the
major if only one is unbid and 4-4 or 3-4 at worst
if they are both unbid. This is not a guarantee at
all. Negative doublers happily use the bid with any balanced shape, no stopper in the overcalled suit and no four-card unbid major, paving the way to the 3-3 fit, and see
immediately below. Could
the negative doubler simply hold a long suit of his
own, not necessarily a major, in a hand where he wants to be in the bidding
but does not have the requisite strength to introduce this suit, at the
prevailing level, the two-level or higher? Yes he
could. This is how players of negative double/forcing free-bids play. They
are not strong enough to bid this suit, forcing, so they negative double in
the hope that the opportunity to show it, not forcing, will arise. Quite
clearly this negates the stipulation that a negative doubler
shows support for unbid major(s) Does
the negative doubler deny five cards or more in a
higher ranking suit? No. So opener
must use a little clairvoyance from time to time and introduce a three-card
higher ranking suit which of course the doubler
will assume to be a four-card suit. Does
the negative doubler promise another bid? Well in
certain circumstances he should, but the reality is that he never does. When
an overcall is 2S or above, what does opener do with
significant extra values, a stopper and a four-card suit that he would like
to offer? If he simply bids the suit or 2NT, he is likely to be dropped, with
game cold. A jump to 3NT by opener may miss the only making game, in the
other major, and vice-versa. When
can the negative doubler’s partner pass for penalty? Never. No matter how good his
trump holding, he cannot assume that partner does not have a huge fit for his
initial suit and that all his quick tricks in that suit will be wasted. What
does it ask? It forces
opener to bid again, the popular wisdom is to show a four-card major at any
cost. Any forced bid is virtually meaningless, both as to strength and
distribution. A 2H “reverse” might be made on, say a 3433 shape following a
better minor opening and a 1S overcall, or the same bid might be made on,
say, a 2-4-1-6 shape. This action will
be singularly unhelpful to the doubler when he does
not hold four cards in that suit and wishes to introduce a lower-ranking long
suit of his own or wants to know how
long opener’s “better minor” is. In summary. The negative double does not describe, it does not ask and it does
not limit the user’s strength. Effectively it does nothing. Both partners
are, in general, at sea. Is
there a better way?
Of course
there is, and as ever the better way is the simpler way. The first and most
important point to realize is that almost invariably the opening bidder will
re-open. He must. Why? Because unless the partnership is playing penalty
doubles, responder must be free to pass, without the slightest pause for
thought, any hand with which he would wish to make a penalty
double. The only time opening bidder
is allowed to pass out an overcall which is passed back to him is when he
holds a minimum hand with three cards or more in the overcaller’s
suit. He is not allowed to guess or try to read the table “vibes.” Good
players simply will not give them. It follows, as night does day, that
responder will not be dropped whenever it matters. Assuming responder will
take no action with no clear bid and with fewer than
12 points, the hand will be passed out only when your opponents are in a
terrible fit and you have nothing significant on your way. What
should double mean?
The positive double is the answer. A positive double, or redouble, announces
no more than the fact that responder has 12+ points, 9+ when the opening bid
was 1NT, 15-17. It is also used to show a 10-12 three-card raise for opener’s
major, but nothing else. Opener has begun to describe his hand, this double, the cheapest of all actions, allows him to continue with
the most descriptive bid possible and simultaneously allows the partnership
to explore at leisure for their best spot. A bid in a new suit will,
unequivocally show shape, not some 4-3-3-3 hand, and there is no need to
jump, just to show a good hand.* After the positive double, passes are
forcing and doubles for penalty. Suddenly
double means something, what a difference that makes! Free
bids, forcing or not forcing? Every action, except double, is limited to 11 points,
similar to bidding opposite a passed, hand. It follows that a new suit, even
at the one-level, can be played as non-forcing, and this is the recommended
way. If, within a partnership, it is decided to play free-bids as forcing
this will certainly work but it seems a pity to give the opponents a free
turn when you have good suit that you want led or raised but not enough
high-card strength to commit partner, with minimum values, to find another
bid. When
is double positive?
The positive double is such a useful, efficient of bidding space, tool that
it is used whenever it reasonably can be. The three basic situations are. · When partner’s opening bid, including 1NT is overcalled · When there is intervention over partner’s overcall ·
When there is intervention over partner’s take-out double or take-out
bid. It should
be clear, already, that the positive double can be used to distinguish a
strong raise from a merely competitive raise in contested auctions. Using the positive double, these
are the meanings of responder’s actions, after 1H or 1S and intervention. Double,
any 12+ or the 10-12 three-card raise Simple raise, 6-9 points, three-card or occasionally
two-card support. Double
followed by a minimum raise or simple preference, 10-12 points, three-card
support. New suit
at the one-level. Four cards or longer, 6-11 points, not forcing. With big
support for opener’s minor, and only four cards in a major, it is preferable
to support immediately, allowing opener, with extra-values, to introduce a
major. New suit
at the two level or higher, non-jump. Five cards or more,
denies three-card or better support for opener’s major, 6-11 points, not
forcing. 2NT Four card
or better support, 10-12 points. Jump raise to three. Four-card or
better support, no singleton, pre-emptive. Jump raise to four. Four card or better
support, a singleton or void somewhere, maximum of one ace or two kings, 0-11
points. In the 6-11 point range, responder
will pass, only if he simply cannot find a bid. Some of the bids he can make,
in this range, are, a new four-card
suit at the one-level, a simple raise of one-of-a major with a
doubleton, 1NT with a stopper, a new, five-card or longer suit at the two- or
three-level. *The book, “The Jorj Relay System” http://db.tt/vCxHjG is far more comprehensive here and readers
may care to carefully consider these ideas and to what extent to incorporate
them. More Bridge Base Online adventures with George Cuppaidge June 2010 As suggested in earlier columns, one benefit you can get from playing bridge in this bizarre medium is to put your ideas to the test, keeping statistics mentally as you go. If something you try does not work, examine in objectively to determine whether it was the action or the luck that was bad. Do not limit yourself to your own actions, examine those of your opponents too and apply the same criteria. You must be objective. Opening nearly all ten-pointers and some hands of lesser strength as I do is a harrowing activity. Invariably if the hand goes wrong, or appears to go wrong, partner’s objectivity is put aside. By, “appears to go wrong” I mean that we go minus and an objective analysis shows that in this particular case a small minus was a good score. Sometimes you can only stand impressed by other people’s actions. They do something which would not have entered your head and it works. Witness the following, I sat south with dealer west and only our side vulnerable. My partner was marked as a friend, which means to me, only, that those times we have played together he has not done anything beyond the pale. Examine all the bids and see which ones you approve of, there were not many in my opinion, but some, in a sense, “worked.” ♠104 ♥Q8 ♦K10876 ♣10754 7 Q53 AJ9765 K10432 954 J2 Q32 AK8 AKJ9862 -- AQ3 J96 W N E S 2H P 4H 4S P P Dbl(1) P 5H(2) 5S(3) Dbl(4) All pass (1) On a good day, I see
two tricks here. The SQ appears to be dead and will my partner have a single
defensive trick outside his heart suit?
In a word, ridiculous. To bid 5H is acceptable but not for me. We have
cramped the bidding, let’s take our chances. (2) The golden rule of pre-emptive bidding is get it all off your chest at once and do not get in partner’s way thereafter. There are exceptions but they are rare indeed. The singleton spade here is not a reason to rip. The opponents have been bustled into four spades, why should not partner have what his bid promises, trump tricks? (3) This man remains on my list of friends for his show of confidence. It is not a bid I would have found, even with a gun to my head. The heart holding is the worst possible and partner, under pressure, may hold the spade suit that East’s bidding suggests. (4) With such a poor double in the first place, a sensitive East would pass, leaving it to partner, following the principle, not showing the same values twice. The bidding should make it clear that this double is unlikely to reap much in the way of a dividend. I trust that readers will consider my bidding unexceptionable. I ruffed the heart lead. Without such revealing bidding the play is automatic. Cash SAK and run the diamonds, cursing inwardly when the SQ does not drop. Has East doubled, twice, holding SQx? I thought not, more likely Q753 I felt, especially in view of West’s rip. Leading a low diamond to dummy’s DK to take the spade finesse is a futile move. There will be no way to use the suit. One way is to finesse dummy’s D10 but it is not the one I chose, rather, I led the DQ overtaking and ran the S10 successfully. Twelve tricks were now a formality. This line succeeds when there is a doubleton DJ in either hand. East put icing on his cake of horrors by insulting his “beginner” partner as he left at about trick seven. Presumably his bidding “screams” for a club lead. A stoic pass of 4S would certainly have netted EW +100. Just one more heart in the west hand than the east hand is not enough, in itself, to steer declarer away from the normal, play for the drop, in the spade suit. A double which converts a plus score into a minus score is right at the top the list of all the many bridge atrocities. |
|
|
|
Live simply that others may simply
live. |
|
|
