Mar
30

Thinning the Herd

Once more than four members of my family are present in the same location you can almost guarantee we’ll have a deck of cards out and we’ll be playing Oh Hell (or, as we, call it “O’ Heck”).

Funny thing about Oh Hell is that, unlike in bridge, to score points you must make exactly your bid, no more, no less, so there is always a fair amount of sluffing going on. Oddly my strategy at Oh Hell is often, brace yourself, underbidding and sluffing a lot of tricks, but I keep catching myself neglecting to discard high. The nature of the game is such that nines and tens, while difficult to bid on, often take tricks. Unlike in bridge, the whole deck is not dealt so one can’t count on face cards in every suit; also the number of tricks bid for can be less (or more) than the total number of tricks available on a hand — that’s the fun part. And “drawing trump” becomes a tricky proposition when it isn’t clear exactly how many remain, but you can get a feel for it based on the bidding. Very much like bridge, however, people keep over-ruffing me when I do want to take a trick.

I do view hands slightly differently than I once did. For example, on one hand on which everyone (there were six of us playing) had been dealt only two cards, I was dealt the ace of trump and a four in an off suit. I also happened to be the person on opening lead. I bid one. My father was the only other person to bid so it seemed safe to say that of the twelve cards out it was likely that only two of them were trump (clubs). Also, this was one of those rare “even” bid hands where the number of tricks available was the same as the number of tricks bid. Often on even bid hands, there’s a fair amount of cooperation that goes on between those who have bid.

I led the ace of clubs. “Are you sure you want to lead that?” Dad asked. “Yep.” “You only want to take one,” he reminded me. “I know.” Two trump fell under my ace, including my father’s nine. Then I led the four of spades which was won by my brother who had, of course, bid nothing; neither of them were amused. I’m not sure I would have played it that way a few years ago, but it seemed like the thing to do (certainly getting a plus score while setting two opponents was a better outcome than just the plus score).

Not that “bridge logic” works on every hand. Faced with four cards including the KTx of trump, a stiff king in an off-suit, and the lead, I decided the best I could do was bid three and lead the off-suit king hoping the ace in that suit had not been dealt or at least had not been dealt to someone who bid on it (again, one can under-bid hands hoping to sluff the high cards, so with a singleton ace one is almost forced to bid on it, but with Ax one can hope one gets a chance to sluff the ace before the suit is led twice or that the second time the suit is led someone else will ruff it). Then, if my king held, I figured I could lead a small trump which someone else would win, then trump the next trick with the ten and play the king of trump (again hoping the ace had either not been dealt or would have taken the first trump trick). Leading the king of trump to “draw trump” to play for all four tricks would only work if no one else had been dealt anything better than Jx because they would simply play small on the first trump trick and then win my ten. If I decided to bid less than three and instead led a small trump at trick one, I would shake the lead, but it would be very easy to still end up with the three tricks if no one had the ace of clubs.

The best laid plans, my brother had the ace of clubs and won the first trick and my father had the ace of trump immediately behind my king (having lost control of the lead on trick one he was able to use it to kill my king — for a game in which the whole deck isn’t being dealt, it’s remarkable how often the king of trump gets killed by the ace). If bridge hadn’t already driven me crazy, playing “O **ck” while thinking like a bridge player almost certainly would have.

Mar
28

Dummy

As I’ve written before, I’ve been very fortunate to play with partners far better than I almost from the very beginning. I’m not sure how common these unequal pairings are throughout the bridge playing world, but I do see them with some frequency. It’s like a form of charity work for bridge players, and the better player is often treated like a saint or, perhaps more accurately, a martyr. [I would have liked to include a picture here of an angelic bridge player, but I couldn't find one.]

I would like to point out, however, that the better player really has it made in these partnerships. If they and their partner do well, the perception is that it is solely due to their superior card playing prowess. If they don’t do well, then it is attributed to the fact that the weaker player was just that bad. (Regardless of the fact that the marginal difference in ability between good players is far less than that of not-so-good players.) Maybe I’ve been going about this all wrong; maybe my goal should be to play with a weaker player than I, you know, if I can find one.

Anyway, I’ll be taking the next several days off from playing bridge while I visit family, but will no doubt be keeping my skills razor-strop sharp with hand after hand of rummy and “Oh Hell”.

Mar
27

The Bed in Which I Lie

We were vulnerable against not and I had made d_mn sure I had every inch of my bid, but we would have gotten a better result if I had just bid the hand the way I wanted to when I first saw it.

♠ KQJ9xxx
♥ Q
♦ AT3
♣ AT

I was in 3rd seat and the bidding had been two passes to me. My first instinct was to open it 4♠, but it’s a five loser hand that is good enough that I rather doubt the opponents have a game their way (even in hearts since my partner will have heart length) and if my partner is completely broke, I’m down two which is a disaster if they don’t have a game. If, in the far more unlikely event, he has something like either major suit ace with a singleton in one of the minors and the king of the other then I’ll have a shot at making six (not that we could bid it in that case, it’s just the point that it was vaguely possible that I’d be preempting us right out of a slam if he was at the top of his pass). It seems like the right thing to do is open it 1♠ and then go to four if he shows any signs of life.

The bidding:

P-(P)-1♠-(2♥)-
P-(3♥)-3♠-All Pass

TMS had the expected singleton spade, but he also had both minor suit kings and the jack of diamonds besides, so it makes five if one guesses the diamonds correctly and the whole room is in game. The Mad Scientist commented as he put his hand down, “If you weren’t so aggressive, I would have taken you to game.” And, no, I can’t explain the reasoning that somehow underbidding will encourage me not to overbid.

The truth is this really is my own d_mn fault because if I wasn’t so prone to overbidding my partners would trust me and this wouldn’t have happened. (It isn’t as if TMS is a shrinking violet.) I was once talking to an expert player at a tournament (well, he was talking, I was listening and wishing I had a tape recorder with me) and he was addressing the issue of being “crazy like a fox” which is to say he’d cultivated a reputation for bidding very aggressively, but at unfavorable vulnerable he always had “the nuts”. So on this hand I had “the nuts” but because I’ve so often bid as if I were nuts no one, including my partner, believed me. I’m the girl who cried, “Monster!”

To put it bluntly, partnership trust is secondary to winning and primary only in so much as it is crucial to winning, which is to say, in light of what happened I’m inclined to wish that I’d bid that hand differently. Or, to quote, Michael Corleone, “Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in.”

Mar
26

Awkward

I’m on my way to go hang out with a couple of non-bridge players. The following is how the conversation will go at some point this evening.

I will have failed to contribute much to the discussion of politics/physics/the finer points of electrical engineering and one of my well-meaning companions will turn to me and say, “Haven’t heard much from you lately. What have you been up to?”
I’ll demure and say something like, “Oh, well, you know, the usual.”
“Still playing bridge?”
“Yep.”
“So how’s that going for you?”
And I’ll say, “Pretty good, well, ups and downs, but I still enjoy it most of the time.”
“Good, good, so when’s your next tournament?”

And then, thinking that they are showing real interest instead of just being polite, I’ll start to ramble about my plans for the NABC in July and whatever it was I had been thinking about while they were arguing over Newt Gingrich and I will take into account my non-bridge playing audience and try to make it interesting and accessible, but at some point I’ll look up and notice that their eyes have glazed over or are desperately scanning the room for the waitress because the words coming out of my mouth are making them very very thirsty. Finally, I’ll stop mid-sentence to say, “So what was that you were saying about North Korea?” and they’ll look tremendously relieved that I’ve stopped talking.

This social game is killing my social life.

Mar
26

Speed Freak

“I may not be good, but I’m fast.” I’ve said those words dozens, if not hundreds of times, by way of acknowledging that my partner and I are once again sitting around waiting for the next table. Some days at the club it feels like I spend more time waiting to play than actually playing.

Not that playing quickly isn’t without consequences, I’ve made more than my fair share of ridiculous errors like calling for a card from dummy that I meant to play on the next trick or not really seeing the opponent’s card before I play, which is as inexcusable as they come as far mistakes go. As fast as I play, sometimes I just end up ahead of myself.

As much as one hears complaints about slow play, to my surprise some of my opponents have actually complained about my playing too fast. When one person at a table is playing at an excruciating slow rate they are, whether they mean to or not, foisting their pace on everyone at the table; but my pulling cards from my own hand without a moment’s hesitation (or, some might say, thought) does not wrench the cards from the opponent’s hands any quicker — much as I might like it to in some cases.

The expert types that I’ve come to admire do pause to ponder the unseen far more frequently than I do. I know their ability to play the cards better than I do is related to whatever it is they’re thinking about at these crucial junctures, but while I may know enough to realize a hand has reached a key play, I can only very rarely tell just what it is they’re working out.

Just the other day at the club, one of these quieter expert types was waiting at my table for the next round and our respective partners had wandered off. Out of the blue he said, “You play fast. I mean, REALLY fast.” “Yeah, it’s kind of a problem,” I said. He shrugged, “But if that’s just how your brain works.” My brain, when it works at all, works fast. When I slow down I get lost, start to second guess myself, often losing the thread of my thoughts altogether.

I have this nagging fear that to get to where I want to be I am going to have to tear down the way I declare a hand and start from scratch because there’s a lot I’m doing by feel and that’s only going to get me so far. “Card sense” doesn’t take as long as analysis, it isn’t as hard either, maybe I’m this fast because I’m lazy. Maybe I should worry about eliminating the stupid mistakes before I start worrying about improving declaring technique, but maybe they’re the same thing and, of course, there’s much more to bridge than just card play. This game so often feels like a sinking ship, every time I fix one leak another one appears somewhere else.

Mar
24

“What have they got that I ain’t got?”

The following comic strip has been hanging on my refrigerator door for some years now:

I’m quite prone to err on the side of overbidding rather than under; for reasons I can’t quite explain, it bothers me FAR more when I’ve been cowardly. I’ve always said, and it’s true, that I’d much rather be -50 than +170. But today I failed to bid a very cold grand slam even though I had an absolute monster and the Mad Scientist opened the bidding.

My hand:

♠ AT
♥ AKJxxx
♦ Axxx
♣ K

He opened 1♣ which is either clubs or a big NT (very little doubt in my mind which it was). I transferred to hearts showing 4+ hearts. He showed that he had long clubs (surprise, surprise). I bid 2♦ which shows something in diamonds, but is mostly just noise (and forcing) on this auction. He now bid 2♥ showing three hearts. I jumped to 4♠ which is RKC Blackwood. He showed one ace. I asked if he had the queen of trump and he responded that he did and that he also had the king of diamonds (denying that he had the king of spades in the process).

Clearly, I would never have bothered to ask about the queen of trump if I wasn’t interested in seven, but in the moment of truth, I faltered and signed out in 6♥. I couldn’t count 13 top tricks, but was failing to take into account the fact that he would almost certainly be able to set up his clubs with my holding the stiff king even if he had to ruff a couple of them to do so. I had been worried about the diamonds, but he can’t possibly also have long diamonds on the auction. TMS humored me a bit by not claiming at trick one, but even the opponent wondered aloud why we weren’t in seven. “I’m a chicken,” I said. “It isn’t just that you’re chicken,” said TMS, “but I question your mental acuity.” “I’m a stupid chicken,” I squawked and he agreed.

On an unrelated note, I stopped for a chicken sandwich on the way home. It was delicious.

Mar
24

Kaboom

The preemptive nature of playing a weak (12-14 HCP) NT was working like a charm yesterday, keeping the opponents out of their fits on hand after hand that belonged to them. There was only one small problem: the reason it was their hand was because the Mad Scientist kept turning up with nothing and I kept going down too many because the opponents weren’t actually making any games their way. It seemed like every hand I opened in NT ended up in a zero.

Throw in a handful of other bidding mistakes and the fact that even when I did manage to make a contract, the result was mediocre at best, and it was the worst game I’ve had in a long time. As readers of this ‘blog will know, that’s really saying something.

Medic!

Lately there has been some grumbling at the club about the system that TMS and I are playing. The vast majority of the complaints are coming from experienced players and really amount to little more than, “You’re doing this to confuse us!” What follows is addressed to them:

Just how did you think the bidding in this game evolved?

Perhaps when the bridge gods tire of watching us wander around in the desert of “standard” bidding, they bless us with new agreements that rain down from on high?

Or maybe when two bridge players love each other very much … and nine months later a stork appears with a bundle of new conventions dangling from its beak?

Everyone knows that bidding is the part of this game that changes and that it does so almost constantly. It’s a language and like language it evolves. The fact is that “Standard American” isn’t the same as it was ten years ago and it won’t be the same ten years from now. You can wax nostalgic all you want for the good ol’ days of the Goren Bidding System, but that dog won’t hunt. There’s a reason almost no one in duplicate plays that way any more and hasn’t in many years. Any reasonable bridge player can see that while the bidding has become more complex over time, it has also vastly improved.

Since clearly, you’ve never given this any thought, I’ll enlighten you. The way in which bidding systems improve is that there are always a handful of stone-cold weirdos out there playing something new and strange. Some of the things they play will work better than what everyone else is doing, but most of them won’t. Eventually the good players will stop laughing just long enough to cherry pick what’s working and incorporate it into their own systems.

And, for the record, as demonstrated by yesterday’s results, this “crazy” system (which isn’t actually all that crazy, it’s mostly just transfer bids — you do know how to compete over a transfer bid, don’t you?) is much more likely to bite us in the ass than it is to damage you; so when you see us getting into yet another muddled sequence your best bet is just to kick back, relax and collect your matchpoints. You may even catch a glimpse of the future.

Mar
23

“Those Miserable Psalms”

A few minutes before the game was to start, I was trying to concoct a way to make it to my seat without having to pass by one of my least favorite individuals. I failed. “Are you interested in attending an Easter passion play?” he asked. I laughed, I couldn’t help it, why is it that the people who try to proselytize me are always those that I least admire? But I finally managed to stop laughing long enough to say, “No, thanks.” “Okay, well, it’s just that uh I thought I heard you say that your father is a pastor.” “Yep, that’s probably why I’m an atheist,” I said. “Oh that’s too bad,” he said. It would be creepy to think he was concerned for the state of my eternal soul, if I believed I had such a thing.

Another woman passing by overheard this and was seemingly fascinated by the revelation, she and I talked for a few minutes about religion in general and it was genuinely interesting to hear her take on it. I essentially said that I had no problem with religion and even thought it could be a force for good, but that it wasn’t for me. A few rounds later one of my opponents said, “I hear we have the same religion or lack thereof.” News travels fastest by laden bridge player.

Religion isn’t a topic one hears discussed much at the bridge table and it isn’t as if bridge players are the tactful sort who avoid controversial topics. I assumed this was because bridge is a game that mostly appeals to those who value logic over mysticism, but upon reflection, like most card players, bridge players are a highly superstitious lot so perhaps that isn’t it after all.

One hears a lot of references to the “bridge gods” being thrown about. These are a wholly malevolent, sadistic group of beings with a twisted sense of humor. You can attempt to appease them by way of sacrificing time and money, but they are out for nothing less than your sanity. Unlike the gods of other religions, the bridge gods don’t much care if you believe in them or not, they will mess with you regardless.

Mar
22

In a Fix

Today was my third time playing with a new partner. It’s a promising partnership if I do say so myself, no major clashes in bidding philosophy or anything like that, there’s just one problem: whenever she and I play together, I get no good cards. So basically she and I sit across from each other and I do almost nothing but pass, and she gets more and more frustrated at her inability to coax a bid from me until the end of the day when I start to get antsy and begin making ridiculous over-calls, just because I have thirteen cards and I can. A vulnerable Unusual 2NT bid with 5/4 in the minors and half a dozen HCP? Absolutely, all six of my points are in my suits!

At matchpoints, at the best of times, I find hand after hand on defense very tiring because every trick counts and defense is hard. It is especially tough with a new partner because one hasn’t really gotten a feel for how they play. Are they more likely to signal that they like a particular suit or that they dislike another suit? What sort of holdings do they like to lead? Will they trust you that you are void when you fail to lead or return their suit? Do they pay attention to the count on every suit or just the long, scary ones? Do they pay attention to the count at all? So many issues that come up again and again on defense, it’s exhausting.

Today was exceptionally frustrating because in addition to the usual foibles we got fixed, over and over. As I’ve noted the hands were running the other direction, but the general consensus by the point-rich North-South pairs was that they were particularly diabolic. What seemed to happen every time we showed up was that the opponents would get to the wrong contract and still get a good score because the right contract is doomed. Twenty-eight combined high-card points playing in a partial? Step right up and take your 80% because most of the room is going down one in 3NT. (Personally when I open a gorgeous 18 HCP hand with spectacular shape, and my partner responds on the two-level at all, there’s no shutting me up below game; but I’m edgy like that.)

My favorite fix was the auction that started with a 2♣ opener. The responder had about ten high cards points and was 5/5 with all of her points concentrated in the majors and a void in the opener’s suit, diamonds. They played in 3NT, making seven, because against that contract my partner will never find the club lead from Axx that will kill any slam. (The responder never even showed her other major, the auction went 2♣-2♥*-3♦-3♥-3NT so no one could fault my partner for then leading a spade.) Of course, if they do make it to a major suit slam (either of which is a very reasonable place to be) then my partner will lead her ace of clubs and my KJxx of clubs will kill it dead.

*Steps

Mar
21

Who me?

The penalty double is an integral part of the game. Without it, there would be no way of preventing rambunctious souls from bidding forever.

–Anonymous