Dubious Logic

Good news, bad news

Most of the bridge I write about here is duplicate. That description doesn't only apply to the pairs game, the familiar staple of club players, but the teams game as well. For social and rubber bridge players a brief reminder that at duplicate the cards are not mixed trick by trick but kept separate, each player looking after his or her hand, so they can be passed to another table and played again. At pairs that will happen many times, at teams, only once more.

The original premise was to eliminate, in the dealt-once game, the luck of holding better cards than your opponents. That would remove the element of chance and provide a true measure of skill - do you think that would stop bridge-players complaining about their poor luck? Of course not. When you bid a close game or slam and it fails, it's galling if on the next deal you see the opponents succeed in theirs. From a recent match, one team never recovered their morale after this:

East's double wasn't penalties but it was a risky action; it's hard to give up the prospect of a vulnerable game at any form of scoring. Likewise my choice to press on to 4♠: I had some useful distribution and hoped for a little more by way of support in dummy. The lead was the club king and with losers everywhere I won the ace and immediately played two hearts pitching a club, I then tried the diamond finesse. North won and returned the suit and I took my chance. South surely had something for his bid so I played a spade to the king. When that held I was able to play another round, though forced to ruff the heart queen next, I had just enough trumps to enjoy the diamond suit and chalk up the game.

North-South were disgruntled. An earlier contract of theirs had failed on a foul break and this seemed too much; spades were 3-3 with the ace onside. Enough damage seemed to have been done by fate to prevent me pointing out that had North played the heart queen immediately when in with the ♦K, all that remained was for South to lead a club through when he won the spade ace and I would have run out of trumps and been forced to play with care to stop the undertricks piling up.

However, the fates were not completely even-handed here. At the other table, against silent opposition, East declared three no-trumps and South led a club. This contract now had little chance but East didn't make the best of the play, finishing four light, our team-mates registering +400 to go with our +620. At teams those aggregate scores are converted into another scale that compresses large numbers. It's much better therefore, to have your good results separately, rather than on the same board - so I think we can count ourselves a little unfortunate there…

Published Saturday 19.Feb.2005