Make the Okay Play

The local IMP league runs on Wednesday nights, and is the primary testing grounds for the top local players. For many years the IMP league was dominated by a few teams composed of the very best players, and participation dwindled as other teams knew they had little chance. The top players then made a very wise decision - they disbanded the elite squads, and instead created teams of both top players and not-at-the-top-yet players. This resulted in a strong sense of competition across the league, and this winter's league is a healthy ten teams.

One of my-ex's (ex partners!) invited Karen & I to join a team this winter, and this Wednesday saw us in battle against a tough team. How do you know a team is tough? - a couple on the team has a cat named Meckwell.

At the other table was the battle royal - three recent national champions, and a player with many national medals. At our less royal table, we faced a recent national champion playing with a strong player.

These events are "playing up" for Karen - that is she is playing against players far stronger than she normally plays against, and these players will employ skill sets that she is not used to battling.

Even though I kidded her at the beginning of the match, that all she needed to do was match the results of the national champion in her seat at the other table, Karen understands that even at the top levels, much of the boards are just about okay: get to the okay contract, and make the okay play, and get the okay result. There is no need for brilliance on many of the bridge boards you will play, but there is a need to contain the number of unforced errors you make: the not-okay stuff.

The cards don't run our way on the dozen boards of the first half - I cost us 10 net IMPs due to aggressive bidding - a raise of Karen's minor opening to two on three card support costs 6 IMPs, a super light opening in 3rd seat ends up impelling me to take a phantom sac for -9 IMPs, and a second seat vulnerable five card weak two on AJ9xx and nothing else wins 5. Play is mixed at both tables, and we are down 37 IMPs at the half, where 40 IMPs is the most you can lose a match by in the league.

In the second half, we have the cards on many of the boards, and focus on okay - bid to the right contact, bring it in.

Our opponents missed a possible slam, and then bid these EW cards to 6 Hearts:

♠ ♥ QT64 ♦ AJT764 ♣ AQ2

♠ AKQ54 ♥ AK72 ♦ 3 ♣ T64

The bidding was 1D-1S;-2D-2H;-3H-4D;-5D-5H;-6H

Responder was not sure if 4D was a cuebid with hearts as trump, or if two hearts was just used as a cheap forcing bid before showing a diamond fit - perhaps to find out if there was a 5-3 spade fit. Responder took 4D as natural, and raised to game. Opener reverted to hearts, and they got to slam, and LHO led a small club. What's the okay play here?

Declarer played club ace, diamond ace, ruffed a diamond, dropping LHO's king. Now slam is almost frigid if trumps are 3-2, but what about a 4-1 trump split?

Declarer cashed three top spades discarding two clubs and a diamond, then ruffed a club, ruffed a diamond high (LHO had started with just two), ruffed the last club, ruffed another diamond high, and then put a spade on the table in this ending:

♠ ♥ QT ♦ J ♣

♠ 54 ♥ 7 ♦ ♣

If LHO has the jack of hearts, the slam makes. If RHO has a spade left, the slam makes. The slam failed. 13 IMPs to us. The club finesse at trick one would have worked, and trumps were 3-2.

On the last board we bid 1S-X-XX-2C;-P-P-2D-All Pass.

Now in expert partnerships 2D would be forcing - a redouble followed by low level new suit bid - however in our poor style, where we often have poor hands for our poor bidding, we treat such poor bids as poorly constructive only. It shows about 11 to 12 "points", where poor points include points for suit length. Thus 2D here is 6+ diamonds and about 9 to 10 high card points. 2D made just two, and brought in 5 IMPs.

We had recovered 31 IMPs in the second half, and lost the match by 6 IMPs. If we make the playoffs and play this team, they will have a slight carry over, plus a cat named Meckwell for fan support.

Board 12s

Paul Gipson of the The Beer Card bridge blog referred to the recent excellent set of posts by Stacy and Linda here:

http://thebeercard.blogspot.com/2009/01/what-are-you-reading-today.html

I hope both are still okay. After the justsaying blog mentioned moi (here: http://pokerandbridge.blogspot.com/2009/01/he-wears-skirt-to-play-bridge-say-what.html ), including a picture, I was unable to get to the computer I blog on, as my head would no longer fit through doorframes, and I was constrained to use our laptop in the kitchen, where I normally play bridge, watch the big TV, and surf.

Fortunately Sarah Palin came out against bloggers yesterday, and I quickly got a pygmy sized head, and can now finally blog once more.

This week I was playing bridge with Karen and watched her finish up our tourney on board 12 of a speedball pairs. I had been making a mess in the kitchen, I mean making spaghetti, while watching Senators hockey in HD, and discussing Senators fixes on the net.

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I negative doubled since my hand was very negative. Well not actually - I doubled since if I passed that was just going to spur the opponents to bid, and if I bid 2S that was going to encourage both them and Karen, so I doubled to add some friction to the auction – make it harder for the opponents to know whose hand it was. In addition the double vastly improved the odds I would not be defending or playing the contract, which meant more time for spaghetti and hockey: the necessities of life.

With our spades at least 5-3, I knew much of the contracts that we reached would either play for at least down two, or the opponents would have game their way.

One of the possible bad outcomes occurred when it turned out Karen had a big balanced hand (we don't open our 14-17 1NT with 17 and five card suit) and bid 3NT. With no ruffing shortness and a soft value in diamonds I left her there and went to stir the spaghetti sauce, which would be less messy than this contract.

Karen is used to my dummies so didn't get stalled by the sight of the junk. There is no use allowing your focus to slip into disillusionment when the honeymoon period of the auction is over.

Karen let the diamond lead go to the jack and her king, played a spade to the jack, and a club to the king, won by overcaller's ace. Now this partly disguised the club situation, but the successful spade play to dummy should have been enough of a clue for the opponents to switch to hearts. Another option was for Karen to lead the club queen at trick two, since the overcaller was most likely to have the club ace.

The overcaller continued with ace and another diamond, Karen discarding a heart. Now Karen had a finesse of the club jack for nine tricks if it worked, down a whole bunch if it failed. So instead Karen ran spades, and discarded clubs from dummy. Both opponents worked hard to hold on their hearts, and now the club jack dropped and Karen had got us a 97.5% score.

A day later, when the spaghetti mess was almost cleaned up, I had to finished board 12 while the Senators played again on TV. I opened a 14-17 1NT and got stuck there:

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The opponents took five hearts on the go, and I pitched spades from dummy, and a spade and dimaond from hand. Now LHO switched to a club: jack, queen, ace. I played the diamond queen, covered twice. Now I ran clubs getting to this position:


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Now this speedball so counting is not a priority. On the two remaining clubs I discarded the spade jack, and king. Both opponents hung onto their diamonds and the spade nine took the last trick. I was happy since the Senators won both games - Karen less so since she hopes we get a good draft pick for next season.

Disguise

In the Colts-Chargers game (for those watching the Colts-Raiders game, please get a better cable package), we saw the Chargers use disguise as a tactic.

For the Colts, Peyton Manning usually lines up his offensive unit, looks over the defensive formation, and then makes an audible (i.e. shouts the play call to his team) that he thinks will work against the opponents. During yesterday's playoff game, Manning would line up his team, the Chargers would form up, and then Manning would do his audible. When his audible was almost done, the Chargers would then shift formations to what they were really going to use on the play. That is they disguised their defensive formation until after Manning had select his team's play. This may seem straight-forward, but other less successful tactics have included:

Bears coach Lovie Smith thinks his defense may be better off ignoring the frequent gestures, signals and audibles of Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning. Manning seems to change more plays at the line of scrimmage than any NFL quarterback, but sometimes it's all a show, according to Smith.

(Daily Herald, 2004/11)

In yesterday's loss to the Chargers, the Colts only had 17 first downs and 64 net yards rushing - the Chargers use of disguise caused problems for AP's MVP of the NFL season Manning.

While the playoff game was going on, the Cayne squad took on the French juniors. Cayne showed the use of disguise here:


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At both tables, the heart queen was led against 1NT. At the other table, East covered the heart queen with the king, which assisted declarer in making 10 tricks. At this table, East played small, and now Cayne followed suit with the nine.

Players too often routinely follow small when a higher spot card can cause problems for the defense. Here, after Cayne played the heart nine at trick one, West played the heart jack at trick two - fail!

This started a nice rally for the French juniors:


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At the other table, West passed 1NT, which made 8 tricks. Here, West balanced with a cuebid to bring the majors into the auction, and East was able to compete to 3H, making 10 tricks and 7 IMPs.

It all came down to the last board and disguise:


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At the other table EW played in 3H making three. Here the French juniors got to 4H on the singleton club lead (1NT was forcing, 2C showed 3+, 3H a game invite). Now you can see the contract can be defeated by club ace, club ruff, diamond ace, and heart king. However when Cayne won the club ace, West disguised his holding by playing the club six. Now Cayne switched to a spade, and the contract had a chance. This was troublesome for North, as there was a good football game to watch on TV.

Declarer cashed two high spades, went to the trump ace, and cashed the spade ace pitching the diamond king. Now declarer ruffed the last spade, and then exited a small heart to the king. Cayne now played a club for North to ruff, but North couldn't ruff - winning the heart ten would leave North to lead away from Axxxx of diamonds with QJxx in dummy, and the heart three as an entry. To win the match Cayne had to play a diamond instead of trying to give the belated club ruff. The disguise play at trick two had the collateral effect of later muddling a defender's thinking.

Playing Profitably

On a random and infrequent basis I update my non-bridge blog, which I just did a few minutes ago:

http://www.bridgematters.com/glenashton/blog.html

Some combine everything into one blog, and I quite enjoy that - you never know what a post will be - however I'm going to keep this blog bridge related, so when I can't come up with a viable or tenuous reason to relate a topic to bridge, I'll post in my other blogs.

Now back to bridge and the PROFIT principles: Probability, Represent, Opportunity, Friction, Immediate, Take.

One note about PROFIT it is, by necessity and probability, adaptable. If you read the last post, you might think, the next time those dastardly Ashtons bid 2X-3X, we are going to double them and light up the sky with fireworks (btw we had a beautiful fireworks display New Years Eve 200 feet from our house - with a -29C/-20F wind chill it was nice to watch indoors from a window). However if we find people, or a certain set of bridge blog readers, returning to penalty and cooperative doubles and nailing us, we will adapt by better hand selection of our 2X and 3X bids - this is the probability of PROFIT - what is the % that something works against it fails.

Warning: PROFIT Style is Dangerous - not for developing players

The reason why playing in a PROFIT style is dangerous for developing players, is that developing players should first focus on the technical "hard" details of the game (such as taking all the tricks that you are entitled to) before getting into the "soft" skills of this style.

Let's look at a hand played in PROFIT style. I sub halfway into a tournament, open 1NT in fourth seat, get raised to 3NT, and play there on a heart lead:


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I win the heart ace at trick one, and advance the club queen. LHO hesitates, and then follows low. Does this mean they have the ace? - no we have that card! This is a typical bridge hesitation - it might be to give partner time to digest the setup and it might be to figure out the right spot card to play, but it is never a clear "tell". Note I start with the club queen to disguise, temporarily, what is happening - we want the opponents to have to shift gears mentally several times while defending the hand - this is friction during the course of the hand.

I continue with the club ace and run clubs when they split 3-2. This is speedball, but even in live bridge you want to do this at a quick tempo: you needed to have formed a discard plan at trick 1, so that your thoughts on discards don't telegraph your intentions.

Now we want to use the diamonds, but if we just discard spades, the opponents will figure out what to do quickly. So I will discard a diamond early, but which diamond?

We don't want the opponents to be concerned about diamonds, so we pick the highest spot to discard, as if it was our lowest diamond - this is the represent of PROFIT. In a quick tempo, the opponents will not fully process the implications of this spot card, but it will leave a suggestion, a fleeting impression, that the diamond suit does not have a lot of low cards to setup.

The two discards are the diamond seven first, the influencing discard immediately, and then a low spade. Each opponent discards a diamond after our diamond seven discard.

Now I play the diamond queen, knocking out LHO's ace, and he returns a spade, which runs to RHO's jack and my queen. I'm now able to run diamonds, and then the spade ten and dummy's hearts squeeze for the 12th trick and a 99% score.

Now if you look at the complete picture, you would see that the opponents have made errors. That's the nature of PROFIT - you take advantage of opportunities, but whether they happen will depend on how the opponents react.

When we look at PROFIT in further detail, we will see this theme repeated constantly - the opponents could have stopped it, but didn't. However PROFIT is not about being academically optimal in the university of hindsight, but instead it's about the rewarding pillaging of the villages on the road to bridge success.