Season of Giving

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and is in store for a prosperous New Year!

In their famous book, Adventures in Cardplay, Kelsey and Ottlik wrote, “The peculiarly satisfying quality of a bridge hand is that it is a fragment of human experience.” Whether or not you buy into such a grandiose statement, the fact remains that—if you look hard enough—some hands do contain within them a hint of life’s lessons. Take, for example, this hand I played about six months ago...

The setting, a BBO IMP-Paris Speedball game with an irregular partner, may excuse the bidding:

When the dummy comes down you briefly lament missing 6(or even 7!)Clubs, but quickly turn your thoughts to the present contract. The opponents play “standard” (4th best) leads, so you know the suit splits evenly. Take a moment to decide how you would play the hand before moving on.

There are basically two ways to declare this hand: the right way and the wrong way. Many declarers will begin the play along two essentially similar lines:

1. Ruff a spade, Ace of diamonds, Ruff a spade, play high clubs
2. Ruff a spade, AKQ of hearts, play high clubs

Both of these variations, ultimately, are at the mercy of the club split. In the first line, declarer is stuck in dummy with all of the enemy’s trumps outstanding. If clubs are 3-2 and a defender ruffs the third round, then declarer will be able to pitch his losing diamond before attempting to return to the closed hand with a diamond ruff to claim the balance. He may, however, be overruffed or subjected to a trump promotion. In the latter case it appears that declarer is better positioned, needing only to dispatch of his spade loser before crossing to hand with the sure Diamond Ace entry. However, if clubs split 4-1, and the defender with the short clubs holds the remaining trump, the defense will be able to ruff declarer’s winner and cash a spade trick.

How should declarer attempt to deal with an adverse club position? Play a small heart out of hand at trick two! This, undoubtedly, will appear bizarre, if not insane, to someone who has never seen such a play before. Losing trumps on purpose is hardly standard practice after-all. Yet, what can the defense return (assuming reasonable splits) that causes declarer much harm? If dummy is forced with a spade, he returns to hand with the Diamond Ace to draw trump and establish clubs, ruffing one if necessary. Dummy’s losing diamonds disappear on the run of the Heart AKQ. A minor-suit return allows declarer to use the Diamond Ace or dummy’s remaining trump for transportation.

Ducking a round of trump when in a 7-card fit headed by the AKQ is a common strategy to protect against a 4-2 break, which is about one-third more likely than a 3-3 break. If you’ve never seen this play before, I highly recommend you add it to your arsenal. Coups like these are extremely difficult to find at the table if you’ve never seen them before, and still a challenge when you have.

For reference, here is the complete hand:

As you can see, the club position wasn’t friendly. Luckily, West held both the Heart Jack and Heart 10, so the defense couldn’t manage a club ruff after the heart duck. Once declarer is lucky enough to clear that hurdle, he can manage a 5-0 Club split against either defender!

So, what life lesson can be drawn from this deal? I hope you’ll agree with me when I say:
Often, if you give a little, you’ll receive much more in return.

Special thanks to Gerardo Malazdrewicz for digging this hand up from the BBO archives.

Bibou

A Guest Food and Wine review by my partner, Jason Chiu

As a team dinner, Marius, Jeremy, Kevin and I went to Bibou following the recommendation from Joann Sprung.  The hole-in-the-wall French bistro was started by the former chef of Le Bec Fin, Pierre, and his wife, Charlotte. They are a BYOB, which means one can bring wines as he chooses with no corkage. They have certainly seen a few all-star lineups, their site even lists a glowing review by Robert Parker with his wine selection. There is an empty bottle of 1982 Haut Brion on the shelf, which may be the one from the wine critic. First off, the wines (on a Decanter twenty-point scale where one rarely ventures below ten, and fourteen is par for each wine and each course)

Chateau Carbonnieux Blanc 1999 - subtle floral notes of melon and mineral. While lighter than a Fieuzal or Cantelys, this well balanced wine has enough substance to contrast a rich bisque. Long finish. 15

d'Arenberg Dead Arm Shiraz 1998 - the spicy and decadent nose gives way to layer upon layer of red fruit, black fruit and earth. Decant both to filter the sediment and allow the wine to open up slightly. 16

Chateau Lynch Bages 1985 - still a massive wine with well-integrated tannins. The primary cassis flavours have largely given way to secondary flavours of leather, cedar and peat moss. Though very fine, it lacks the refinement of more recent Lynch Bages or super seconds from that year. 17

We each had the seven-course dinner, which they offered for $70. With tax and tip, this came out to $100, but a couple of my teammates certainly indicated that they got a great value for their money. We list the courses along with the wines

Lobster bisque (Carbonneiux) - The smooth shellfish broth was rich and flavourful, all the shellfish, sherry and vegetable components could be tasted separately. Yet they were so well integrated and complemented the lobster well. And as mentioned above, this is where the Carbonnieux fared best. 16.5

Wild Scottish hare pate (Carbonnieux) - This came with a cabbage salad and orange ginger jam. With a leaner composition, coarser texture and gamier flavour, this stands out from the traditional pate experience. The pate itself called for a weightier white, but the orange brought out the minerality from the wine. The course was good, but seemed somewhat out of place in the lineup. Though pates are traditionally second or third, it seems that it would have been appropriate after the sturgeon and maybe better with the shiraz. 14.5

Sturgeon (Carbonnieux) - I order smoked sturgeon weekly from the farmer's market in California, and was very pleased with the medium rare preparation here. It came with sea grass, cucumber, endive and caviar. This is the first time we really noticed that the textures are phenomenally well balanced in all these courses. The al dente sea grass, similar in density to the stem section of many herbs, was neither overwhelmingly bitter nor out of place. 16

Foie gras (d'Arenberg) - A poached half pear and a bit of pumpkin toast came with the red wine sauce and grilled foie gras. Certainly a red wine preparation rather than a Sauternes preparation, it brought out the spicy red fruit in the shiraz. Savouring the fine smooth texture of the foie, I closed my eyes a few too many times and allowed the sauce drip on my lap. But nothing that the cleaners couldn't take care of, and I certainly would come back just for this. Very fine. 18.5

Bone marrow (Lynch Bages) - This dish came with an arugula salad and roasted potatoes; the marrow itself with a breadcrumb, shallot, mushroom preparation. As with the shellfish broth, each component was distinctive and in place. However, we thought that the breadcrumbs were a bit too crisp and masked the softer texture expected of the marrow. Merely good, we think perhaps they toned it down for the American palate. 14

Roasted squab breast and duck confit (Lynch Bages) - The birds came with a red wine sauce and pureed potatoes. The crisp skin on each part really gave the dish some complexity. I do not normally eat poultry, since I do not like the texture of chicken. However, these were so much more flavourful and consistent that I picked up the bones to lick the meat off. It brought out some of the tertiary notes in the Lynch Bages, but in the end, the wine overpowered the dish. 15.5

Dessert - Many things to share off the dessert cart, including blood orange sorbet, lemon sorbet, chocolate ice cream, chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, creme caramel, a peach tart and coconut macaroons. I had it with French press coffee, since we did not bring the bottle of Sauternes. For each item, the texture was balanced and the flavours not overly sweet. I especially enjoyed the intensity of the lemon sorbet and the chocolate cake. 13-15.5

What made the dining experience special was the chef Pierre, who came out and chatted with us about the meal halfway through. Though this is standard in the first rate French restaurants, there is little of that here in America. His wife Charlotte was a great hostess and put up with the reservation changing from two to six to four. As my teammates said, she even thought well of the wine selection and asked the waiter the year of the Lynch Bages. I certainly did not mind, since I spotted the empty Haut Brion 1982 bottle sitting on the ledge and looked at that too. We will be coming back Wednesday and Saturday. One dinner will be a foie and desserts, while the other will look at the tasting menu.

Semi-Achievement

As I sit here writing this I can hear the riotous cheers and congratulations being heaped upon the U-21 team from England, who just completed a 44.5-IMP 4th-quarter comeback against the Dutch in their semifinal match to earn a shot at a gold medal tomorrow. Peering over the balcony I can see the usual contingent of tears amongst the team and admiring onlookers. What is there to say? When you win, it feels incredible. When you lose… it doesn’t. I remember when I won the Collegiates, but there are many other important losses that I remember as well. That’s sport: you can’t always win.

In the weeks before this tournament began I wasn’t sure how our team would perform. There were ups and downs in our results, although Jason and I had been improving. However, as the round robin wore on it became clear that our team was amongst the best and I genuinely felt that we would beat Israel today to earn a berth in the gold-medal match tomorrow. When you put your heart into something the way I have with bridge over the past few years, you wonder when it’s going to be your time to come out on top. As it turns out, this year wasn’t my year. It’s the last chance I’ll have to win a Junior World Championship, but I know that there is still plenty of time down the road to win an Open World Championship if I keep playing this game. And, hey, in the meantime there’s a bronze medal to be won tomorrow.

I’d like to say that I played well today and that Israel beat us soundly anyway. But the fact is that I could have played much better. After 3 quarters our team was down 80. After a lot of thought, we decided to concede rather than play the 4th quarter. There are several reasons for this:

1.   We hadn’t managed to beat Israel by any number of IMPs over the last 4 sets of boards we’d played against them.  Calculating the probability that we’d be able to muster 80 IMPs in 14 hands isn’t an exact science, but it’s easy to tell that the chances of that result were remote.  
2. Bridge is a tiring game.  Playing another 14 hands against strong players wouldn’t put us in the best possible position for our bronze-medal matchup with China tomorrow.  If you look at it as a simple expected-personal value (PV) problem you might say

p(Bronze|Withdrawl)*PV(Bronze) >  
[(1-p(win))*p(Bronze|!Withdrawl)*PV(Bronze)+
(p(win)*p(gold)*PV(Gold))+(p(win)*p(silver) *PV(Silver)]  

Where p(win) << 1

An outside factor is that in the other semifinal match China had already conceded to France.  Is it sporting to force a team to play what will (most of the time) be a pointless set that will only tire them out before an extremely important match the next day?  The general consensus on this front is no.

Here is an important hand from the match:

This is a hand where strong fundamentals will lead you to the correct line.  The heart suit itself is one of the most basic suit combinations in bridge.  The correct way to play the suit for one loser is to cash the Ace and then lead towards dummy when nothing special happens.  You’ll come to 3 losers 17% of the time when South holds KJx or KJxx of hearts.  This is outweighed by the 19% chance that you’ll lose to KJx or KJ in the North hand if you try to finesse twice towards hand (leading the 10 first).  Any good bridge player knows that, in the long run, you’re a winner if you follow the percentages.  For some reason being on Vugraph and under the bright lights of the live video feed I forgot this and decided to run the Queen of hearts (which actually has a 24% likelihood of failure when you find you can’t recover against KJxx with North).  Happily this wasn’t my undoing, and I found myself in the comfortable position where I could claim as long as clubs weren’t 4-0 (roughly a 10% chance). 

Well, guess what?  They were.  But wait!  I can still recover the position if South is the player who holds 4 clubs.  With the 3-1 heart split this is slightly more likely than the scenario where North holds all four clubs but is still ~5%.  So I’m 95% to make at this point if I just play the Club Ace and then finesse twice towards hand.  Sadly… when you’re under stress you often overlook the little details.  So I claimed 12 tricks only to find that the defense forced me (by right) to play the king of clubs first, eventually losing a trick in both of the rounded suits.  So, where a strong technician would take 13 tricks on this hand, I was left with 11 and a 17-IMP loss when slam made in the other room.

But wait, there’s more! A hand like this can have the effect of really shaking your mental fortitude.  As I pulled the cards out for the next board you could say that, emotionally, I felt like a battered fighter knocked out cold on the mat.  One of the most difficult aspects of bridge is keeping your thoughts collected, both when under pressure and after disasters such as this one.  Entire matches have swung on much less when a player is effectively removed from the match because they couldn’t recover mentally from a prior mistake.  Needless to say, a champion is made of sterner stuff.

So, to put it bluntly, I didn’t play well enough today to earn a shot at a gold medal.  And I let my team down on this hand especially, amongst others.  Maybe one day I’ll have another shot at gold but, for now, I need to recover and be ready to go again tomorrow.

A Speculator's Haul

Financial advisors and gamblers are well-acquainted with the term ‘speculation,’ an investment that doesn’t guarantee the safety of invested monies but often has a large upside.  High-risk ventures can yield large profits or big losses—both dependant on the odds of success and the size of the principal.  Bridge players often employ a facet of this risk strategy when they ‘take a view.’

In bridge a ‘spec double’ is a penalty double that is made without any guarantee that a contract will go off.  Often, the doubler can only see a fraction of the tricks necessary to defeat a contract.  The risk is offset by the potential reward achieved by a multi-trick defeat, or the induction of a lead from partner that may be necessary to beat a hand that would otherwise have been made.  The opportunity to unholster this weapon usually arises in invitational auctions. 

Here is a hand from our 7^th round match against China Hong Kong in the U26 World Championships:

There are a number of indicators here that you may be green-lit to let your spec double off the chains:

1. The opponents went through an invitational auction, not a game-force.  Not only that, but the hesitation indicates that North doesn’t have the world’s greatest invite.  This means that…
2. Both players have limited their hands so you know your partner must have some values.
3. Your spade values lie over the spade bidder.  Partner’s presumed values lie over opener’s suits, i.e. most of their finesses will lose.
4. This double has the Lightneresque quality of asking for a spade lead (dummy’s first-bid suit), which may be key to the defense.  It’s easy to envision partner leading the unbid suit with catastrophic effect when the contract might be defeated multiple tricks by alternating major-suit leads.
5. The opponents may be cold for 3N but get cold feet and run, pushing them out of a makeable game. 

Before you try your hand at a spec double, be confident that you’re in a position where the opposition won’t be able to redouble you, a play that may push the risk-reward envelope too high.  It turns out that on this particular hand our opponents had a bit of a misunderstanding, but a well-timed spec double turned a poor -150 into a disastrous -500 for the pair from Hong Kong, even after they ran to 4D.  The full hand:

Day 3

Well, it’s the 3rd day of play here in Philadelphia and finally I have some time to write. So far I've mostly been occupied with 10 hours of bridge a day.  I try to eat and sleep in the remaining 14 hours. Luckily, I had the opportunity to have one of the best dinners of my life on Saturday night (look for a special guest post by my partner, Jason Chiu) with some team members.  I also saw my good friends, Brian Wyman and Jocelyn Rhoades, on Monday.

Up to this point I would classify the tournament as stressful.  I felt relatively calm leading up to this trip compared to the previous two years, although there were some symptoms of stress. However, since I’ve arrived in Philly it’s been impossible to remain asleep for more than a few hours at a time and I've had to basically force myself to choke down meals.

So why is that? Well, while my main goal in normal tournaments is to have fun, it’s nothing but business here. Free time before matches is spent poring over the opposition’s system notes and constructing counter-defenses to bids that are foreign to American players. With the advent of running-scores on the internet, what used to be relaxing sit-outs have become stressful sessions looking at your teammates’ results. Evenings are spent wondering how you could have possibly screwed up such-and-such a bid or botched such-and-such a play. The table environment is also intense. For anyone who hasn’t seen a screened bridge table before, here's our battlefield:

Notice the diagonal barrier across the top of the table as well as the divider underneath. These are to prevent the communication of any illegal signals between partnerships. During play the small window is opened to see the play of the cards. Basically the only part of your partner’s body you can see are his or her hands.

As far as results go, we’ve been doing well. Currently my partner and I are the top-rated pair in the tournament and our team has a healthy grip on 1st place heading towards the end of the round robin. For those of you who are wondering, there is no carryover in the knockout phase, but the top ranked team gets first choice of 5th-8th placed opponent in the quarterfinals and is allowed to set the semifinal matchups. However, if USA2 qualifies for the knockout phase, the bracket would be constructed such that we would play one another in the semifinals in order to prevent an all-American final.

Bridge is a game of mistakes. Much like golf the main objective is to hit the fairways and greens. Do that, and you’re likely to distance yourself from the field. But, just as Jean Van de Velde blew it on the 18th hole of the 1999 British Open, one serious error can ruin all your hard work. Up to this point our team hasn’t been great, but the other teams have been worse. It’s a microcosm of many of life’s challenges.