The Gargoyle Chronicles: Zenith Daylong - Oct 14, 2021

Sunday, January 9, 2022

Zenith Daylong - Oct 14, 2021 - Board 12

Board 12
Neither vulnerable

♠ A K 5 ♥ K 10 4 3 ♦ K 7 ♣ A K 6 2

Partner opens with 1NT. We have 35 to 37 combined HCP, and mine are all in aces and kings, so I am just short of driving to a grand slam. Our prospects may be better in a suit contract than in notrump. I can bid Stayman to find a heart fit, but after two clubs--two diamonds, I have no idea if it's possible to look for a club fit in the robots' methods. Maybe 5NT would work. It should be forcing to 6NT and request that partner bid suits up the line. Unfortunately, I have no way of finding out what partner thinks a bid means until it's actually an option and I have a tooltip available, so it's impossible to plan ahead.

I'll start with two clubs and hope I can bid 5NT later if necessary. Partner bids two hearts. Good. Now I don't have to worry about a club fit. A common agreement here is that three of the other major shows support for partner's major and slam interest, and the robots do play that, so I bid three spades. Partner bids four diamonds. He shows more than a minimum by cooperating with my slam try, so I'm now willing to bid a grand slam if we have all the keycards.

I bid four notrump, and partner bids five spades, showing two keycards and the trump queen. We have all the keycards. Now I have to decide whether seven hearts or seven notrump is better. I know ten of partner's high-card points. Since he has shown more than a minimum, he needs six more. Let's give him two queens and two jacks. Any two queens (unless he has ace-queen doubleton of diamonds) gives us twelve cashing tricks. A jack along with one of the queens might provide a thirteenth. But it might also be wasted. Queen-jack third of spades is worthless, as is ace-queen-jack tight of diamonds. On the other hand, a thirteenth trick might easily come from a ruff. Any of the three side suits might provide one. In short, seven hearts looks quite good, and seven notrump, while possible, looks speculative. So I bid seven hearts.

Everyone passes, and West leads the four of spades.

	NORTH Phillip ♠ A K 5 ♥ K 10 4 3 ♦ K 7 ♣ A K 6 2

	SOUTH Robot ♠ Q 7 3 ♥ A Q J 5 2 ♦ A J 5 ♣ J 9

West	North	East	South
Robot	Phillip	Robot	Robot
		Pass	1 NT
Pass	2 ♣	Pass	2 ♥
Pass	3 ♠	Pass	4 ♦
Pass	4 NT	Pass	5 ♠
Pass	7 ♥	(All pass)

Partner judged well to evaluate his hand as better than a minimum even though he has only 15 HCP. The fifth heart is an extra trick and compensates for his having only one queen. That brings us to twelve tricks, and a diamond ruff provides our thirteenth. Seven notrump is only slightly better than a finesse. So seven hearts looks like the right spot.

If trumps break, I can draw three rounds of trumps and ruff a diamond. What if they don't break? Then I will need to take the slight risk that someone has a singleton diamond. I can play ace and king of diamonds, then ruff the third diamond high.

I win the spade lead in dummy and test trumps by cashing the heart king. Everyone follows, so I claim.

	NORTH Phillip ♠ A K 5 ♥ K 10 4 3 ♦ K 7 ♣ A K 6 2
WEST Robot ♠ 10 8 4 ♥ 8 7 6 ♦ 10 6 3 2 ♣ Q 8 3		EAST Robot ♠ J 9 6 2 ♥ 9 ♦ Q 9 8 4 ♣ 10 7 5 4
	SOUTH Robot ♠ Q 7 3 ♥ A Q J 5 2 ♦ A J 5 ♣ J 9

48%. It's unusual to get below average for bidding and making a grand slam, but a plurality of the field bid 7NT. Since 13 out of 33 pairs did not reach any grand, the 7NT bidders did not have good odds for their gamble. If 7NT makes, they gain 9.5 matchpoints--half a matchpoint for each of the 19 other pairs in a grand. (It makes no difference which grand. The gain is half a matchpoint either way.) If 7NT goes down, they lose those same 9.5 matchpoints plus an addition 13 for the pairs not in a grand for a total of 22.5 matchpoints. So they are risking more than two to one on a coin toss.

Of course we don't know it's a coin toss until we see partner's hand. Either minor-suit jack could have been a queen instead, making 7NT cold. Or the diamond jack might have been the spade jack, making it virtually hopeless. It's hard to say what the odds were at the time I had to make my decision. But I doubt they were two to one, so I'm happy with my choice.

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About This Blog

First, a word or two about who am I so you have some idea how seriously to take the advice you find here. I retired from tournament bridge in 1992 (coincidentally, the year my daughter was born). At the time, I had accumulated a little over 5000 masterpoints. I had won numerous regional events and had finished second or third in several national events. Annoyingly, I have never won a national event of any significance. (The qualification is necessary. I did win one national event of little significance.) My best result was second place in the Grand National Teams (with John Lowenthal, Michael Becker, Ron Rubin, Michael Rosenberg, and Brian Glubok). I have theories about why this is, but I won't bore you with them now.

I am still in contact with many of my friends from tournament days. So I still discuss bridge and, occasionally, still write articles for Bridge World magazine, some of which you can find reprinted here: Phillip Martin's Bridge Articles

I have always enjoyed writing about bridge and have, from time to time, considered starting a blog. I think there is a void in the bridge literature that I can make some attempt to fill. Bob Hamman has stated that most people play bridge by asking themselves what they should do. Instead, they should be asking themselves what is going on. Once you figure that out, what to do will often suggest itself. I think he is right about that, and I think bridge literature is partly responsible. Bridge books and articles focus on the unusual and the spectacular. They can get you in the habit of looking for opportunities to shine, which isn’t what you should be thinking about.

The late John Lowenthal, my partner for years, was perhaps the king of doing the unusual, especially on defense. But he always found these plays by being alert to what was going on, not by simply looking for opportunities to do something unexpected. If declarer spurned a finesse John expected him to take or failed to attack a suit that John expected him to attack, John would ask himself why. Frequently, the answer to this question would reveal the entire deal. Then John could be creative and think about finding some way to deflect declarer from the winning line. And, often, he succeeded.

What I am going to attempt to do in this blog is to show by example how one should think about the game. The focus will be on process, not on results. How do you figure out what is going on? How do you try to conceal what’s going on to the opponents? How do you try to clarify the position to partner? These are the skills that separate the expert from the intermediate player more than the ability to execute a backwash squeeze. And, for this purpose, almost any deal can provide material for discussion.

What I propose to do is to play in BBO robot individuals and report on each deal in detail, focusing on the questions I ask myself and how I reach each decision. I will report on each deal, not just the ones I find interesting or instructive. This blog will probably not be of much help to a beginner, but I think it will be instructive for an intermediate player. And my expert friends will finally see what is going on inside my head when I’m in one of my interminable huddles.

I will be South, but, following convention, I will always make South declarer in the diagrams. Thus my reported compass direction may change from deal to deal.

I should point out that not all of my ideas are mainstream. I considered including a catalog of quirks, but I decided that was unnecessary. They will become apparent in due time.

The Gargoyle Chronicles

Sunday, January 9, 2022

Zenith Daylong - Oct 14, 2021 - Board 12

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