Dubious Logic

Tyros, "That Old Black Magic" and Careful Defenders

I am sure this happens to many bridge players: a social conversation uncovers you play a bit of bridge, occasionally at a club. It transpires your interlocutor also plays a little, but not as "seriously" as you do. He goes on to say, "you'd never work us out, we like to be unpredictable – keep the opponents guessing – we just bid as the mood takes us". At this point I stumble.

I know this is an expression of system rejection: bridge was fun around the kitchen, pub or coffee table but when it threatened to involve codes and agreements, it began to feel like hard work. I have a lot of sympathy with that – which is why I dawdle along country lanes on a bicycle and have never trained for a time-trial, let alone entered one. But then the emphasis shifts towards the idea the unfettered approach works as well as a system. And there are two flaws in that.

The first is that they are almost certainly mistaken; it doesn't and, as they don't match themselves against a variety of opposition, they have no way of knowing. The second is that though the simplest approaches can be a platform for success, it is very hard to work eveything out from first principles all the time. That's for 'Naturals' – and very, very few players are. What fills the gap at the informal card table is well, something Edgar Kaplan called 'That Old Black Magic'; the body language, the huddles and worse. Quite simply you cannot have a single sequence that covers a wide range of hands in terms of strength, support, hand-type etc. It is system that separates them.

You would take these tyros to the cleaners, even allowing them a little witchcraft. Yes, occasionally there will situations where you cannot believe they took a particular action but you can tell those tales against yourself at the club. And there's a third reason: their card play hasn't been tested. Curiously in this department sometimes it helps to have a skilled opponent. This deal arose in round two of the Suffolk Championship Teams.

West opened a strong no-trump (15-17) after two passes and East raised directly to game. Against this uninformative auction North led the heart eight, second from a poor suit. Prospects for declarer were not good even if there were four tricks available from hearts. Worryingly, if the heart suit so disappoints North-South, a switch to spades becomes more attractive.

Accordingly declarer played the heart ten (not to cover would have aroused suspicions) and, when South retained her queen, overtook with the king. He then finessed the diamond ten and his fortunes brightened considerably when South won the ace. As the lead seemed to have found West with ace-king alone of hearts, she continued the suit… Declarer did not check the horse's teeth, grabbed the heart ace, four diamonds and three clubs for nine tricks and +600.

It requires North to hold quite a specific hand for the heart return to defeat the game (though 109x 98753 Kxx KJ works) and perhaps the picture of honour-doubleton heart in the closed hand, establishing the heart queen for the defence, was so strong it induced a passive continuation from South. But it takes a defender who knows that many more contracts are let through by over-action than by giving nothing away.

Published Saturday 27.Jan.2018