Be kind to your commentators

May 29th, 2009  ~  Ray Lee  ~  No Comments 

I’ve always wondered where BBO gets its VuGraph commentators from — you know, those folks who are allowed to talk in the VuGraph room when no-one else can, but mostly seem to get things wrong, much to your frustration as an informed kibitzer.  Well, ‘now I are one’, as they say, and it hasn’t taken long for me to realize just how tough a job it is.

This all started a couple of weeks ago when Roland Wald (el supremo of BBO VuGraph) was asking for more commentary volunteers.  Linda signed up, so I applied too since I thought it might be fun to do it together.  I knew Roland would never have heard of me, so I gave Eddie Kantar, Fred Gitelman and Bobby Wolff as personal references. That worked 🙂  Suddenly I was assigned to several sessions of the US Women’s Trials this week.

My first panel included Kit Woolsey and a couple of other heavy honchos.  Clearly, I wasn’t going to out-analyze these guys, and I decided not to try.  Instead I slipped into the role of the colour man ( think Vic Rauter on the curling broadcasts, for Canadian readers), trying to ask questions that would get my illustrious colleagues to discuss something that would interest the kibitzers.  For example, West on one deal held

♠AJ432 ♥QJ95 ♦A ♣10 9 6

and over RHO’s 1♦ opening chose to overcall in spades.  It seemed to me that a takeout double was a better call, so I raised the issue, and a good discussion ensued.

Later one player opened 1♦ with 0-4-4-5 shape (and good clubs, headed by the AJ10).  I asked if I was the only person who still refused to open 1♦ with this shape.  Some of the kibitzers told me I was, but many sent me supportive messages, and Chip Martel also said he much preferred to open one club on this hand.  That felt good — always nice to have a World Champion agree with you 🙂

I’ve been surprised at how many personal messages you get from kibitzers — they want to ask a question, perhaps about the auction, or something you’ve said, or point out something in the play that hasn’t been mentioned yet.  And I’ve also found it’s very easy to upset people.  This morning one deal was being played in 3♠ , and in the ending declarer could have claimed an overtrick.  However, if the cards were played as we saw them, he actually was going down 1 — then we were given the result as just making, after a claim.  We got a lot of questions about that, and I suggested that perhaps the final sequence of plays was not what we had seen.  That got the VuGraph operator in Latvia upset (“I’ve been doing this for 5 years and have never been criticized’) and I had to apologize profusely to her, and assure her no slight was intended.  It wasn’t — I’ve been a recorder at the table in World events, and I know that sometimes the play just goes too fast for you to keep up — sometimes you can’t even see exactly what card was played, then there’s a claim and everyone throws their cards in.

And another kibitzer took exception to one of my attempts at humour, I think feeling that I was making fun of the players.   I wasn’t — the hand was over and declarer was playing out her long suit, but no-one had any problem discards.  So I was just trying to fill the dead air.  Whoops; going to be more careful in future, I guess.

Once or twice I did make analytical comments, and I’m going to do much less of that in future too.  There’s so much going on (especially with all these private messages from kibitzers to deal with all the time) that it’s hard to stop and really think something through.  At least for me.  So a couple of times I had an exchange like:

(Ray, out loud): There are two ways to play the trump suit, but only one works on this layout.

(Linda, out loud, but kindly)  Well, cashing the AK is the percentage play, and that works here.

Ray (out loud)  Yes, you’re right.

Kibitzer to Ray: He doesn’t have a dummy entry for the other play anyway.

(Ray thinks furiously, spots an out, sends back to kibitzer): He could overtake the spade queen.

Kibitzer:  Oh yes, you’re right, sorry.

Ray (thinks): Phew, a narrow escape that time.

But some I didn’t get away with, like the time I commented that without the eight of diamonds, declarer wouldn’t have made her contract, much less the overtrick she was collecting.  Several kibitzers corrected me quickly (luckily their messages can’t be seen by anyone else). I did get one right though, when an internationalist colleague suggested that a slam depended on a finesse, and I was able to point out a line of play that didn’t require the finesse.  I’m probably well behind overall on analytical accuracy, however.

As far as I can see so far, there are at least 3 kinds of commentator:

1) People who just want to talk all the time, whether or not they have anything useful to contribute.  Often their comments and analyses are wrong (Linda hates these guys and gets into fights with them…)

2) Top experts who have important insights to contribute

3) People who can offer insightful commentary and some entertainment too.

I’m not sure I’m yet in category #3, and I’m trying to avoid Category #1 at all costs (won’t ever qualify for #2). I’d like to think I can maybe develop into a type #4 — someone who can recognize interesting issues and get the Cat#2 people to talk about them, for the edification of all.  With perhaps the occasional bit of humour thrown in.

In any case, it’s been fun so far, and I’ve certainly got a much better appreciation of how tough a job it is.  So next time I’m on, and type something stupid, please be nice to me 🙂

The Mysterious Multi

May 9th, 2009  ~  Ray Lee  ~  13 Comments 

Paul Marston’s Editorial in the latest issue of his excellent magazine, Australian Bridge, discusses the fact that the Multi 2D can no longer be played in Pairs events in the ACBL. He has some interesting thoughts on what this says about the ACBL’s attitude to the game in general. Let me quote a little:

“There is nothing sacred about the Multi 2D, but there is something sacred about being allowed to play the game without interference from meddling Ray Leeistrators.

“Why do they do it? They do it because they know the game was popular 50 years ago and they are trying to relive those glory days. This, they think, means banning anything new. Of course there is never a shortage of good players to support such a campaign – the first line of defense in bridge has always been to seek to ban the opponents’ methods. In 1934, Culbertson wrote about the diehards who thought signalling by playing high-low in a suit was akin to cheating.”

And, I might add, ‘conventions’ like takeout doubles and even Blackwood met with similar opposition when they first introduced. Back to Marston:

“By trying to take the game back 50 years, they completely miss the reason why Culbertson and Goren were so successful. They were not selling a particular version of the game – they were selling change, the very thing the ACBL has outlawed. ‘Do it my way,’ they said, ‘and you will beat your neighbours.’ ”

I have just finished reading an account of the Culbertson era, which will be published (not by MPP!) this Fall, and it leaves no doubt that the purpose of the great showdown against Lenz was to demonstrate the superiority of Culbertson’s methods – and thereby sell his books. And when Culbertson won that match (and the subsequent matches in the UK), it was his system that was credited with the triumph. The rest is history. As Marston says, the message was simple: ‘Do it my way, and you will beat your neighbours.’ Back to the Editorial again:

“People get excited about change, because it gives them hope. Consider golf. You often see complete duffers hacking their way rond the course… with the latest metal driver. In truth it wouldn’t make any difference if they were using an old wood, but… it gives them hope, and hope makes them keen. If the ACBL ran golf, they would require you to use a bag of clubs that was designed in 1940. Then they would have a complex set of rules about when you could add a club with a fibre shaft, and so on.”

Harsh? Maybe, but I have a lot of sympathy with his point of view. Remember, we’re not even talking about the real Multi 2D here – the one that can be a weak two or a variety of strong hands. We’re just talking about an opening bid that is a weak two either in hearts or spades. The same convention that every LOL in Europe has used and/or played against, without apparently either feeling that some kind of sharp practice was going on or demanding protection from the authorities.

I’ve personally never been a big fan of Multi – if RHO has a spade preempt, and wants to open 2D and let me overcall hearts at the two level, that’s his problem not mine. To me, the real reason to use Multi is that you have something better to use 2H and 2S for than a standard weak two. But that’s not the point. The point is that a pretty harmless convention has been ruled inadmissible in ACBL pairs events. No more Multi even in the Blue Ribbon or the LM Pairs. What conceivably can be the rationale for that? Can’t the clients handle it, poor things?

The official rationale for banning Multi (and related conventions like Multi Landy over a 1NT opening) is that it is too ‘unusua’l. This despite the fact that there are two written ACBL defenses available, defenses that players are allowed to use and refer to at the table! Of course, any convention that isn’t allowed to be played in most events can be classed as ‘unusual’ – it certainly won’t be encountered very much of the time. On a bridge-related forum where the situation was discussed recently, someone suggested the most likely reason was that someone on the ACBL BoD got a bad board against Multi sometime. It’s as likely an explanation as any other.

Commercial: for those who don’t play in ACBL land, or who play in events with 6+ board rounds (i.e. team games), MPP has a book coming this Fall: The Mysterious Multi: how to play it, how to play against it, by bridge journalists Mark Horton and Jan van Cleeff. Includes not just Multi in all its forms, but material on what else you can do with the freed-up 2H and 2S openings.

These guys are good

March 16th, 2009  ~  Ray Lee  ~  3 Comments 

This is my personal favorite from the forthcoming book version of Larry Cohen’s My Favorite 52. As I’ve said before, I really like the material in this book, but this one was the standout for me.  This was the one that made me sit up and say ‘Wow. Now I know why these guys win all the time.’

This deal comes from the World Open Pairs in Lille, 2000.  Larry and David Berkowitz led this event almost from wire to wire — they stumbled in the very last round to finish second.  If you want more details, buy the book 🙂

Meanwhile, earlier in the event, when things were going well, Larry picked up

West				East
♠	9 6 5			♠
♥	Q			♥
♦	9 7 6			♦
♣	A K J 9 5 2			♣

Red against white, after two passes, he got to open a Precision Two Clubs — 6+ clubs and 11-15 points.  This is a nice bid for the occasion — highly descriptive, and preemptive too.  And unlike those who open a standard-type One Club, Larry is going to get the lead he wants.  LHO doubled, and David raised clubs.  North wasn’t going quietly though: he balanced with another double,  South bid Three Spades, and David doubled this on the way out.  Hmm… wonder how many clubs are going to cash on defense, and where the rest of our tricks are coming from?  I’m going to walk you through the defense the way Larry does from here.

So what do you lead?

Given that partner has raised, a top club probably isn’t the killing lead; maybe you should lead a trump, though?  Larry decided on the  ♥ Q.  He didn’t know how he was beating this without getting some ruffs. (This isn’t the hard part yet, BTW. I’ll let you know when that comes.)

Dealer:  E Vul:  E-W		North
		♠	A K 2
		♥	J 9 8 2
		♦	A K 10 3
		♣	8 6
West				East
♠	9 6 5			♠
♥	Q			♥
♦	9 7 6			♦
♣	A K J 9 5 2			♣
		South
		♠
		♥
		♦
		♣

As Larry points out, this is an attractive dummy for the defense.  It has only three trumps, it has two clubs, and its relatively small number of high cards suggests partner has some strength.

Partner wins the  ♥ A as declarer follows with the  ♥ 6 (watch the spots carefully, now).  Partner returns the  ♥ 3.  Declarer plays the ♥ K and you ruff with the  ♠ 6 (you are signalling in trumps to show an odd number).

What now?

Well, yes, of course partner was asking for a club so you lead one.  Does it matter which one?

Okay, this was the key play.  No points for just leading back a low club, we know partner (who raised clubs) must have the queen, there’s nothing else he could be signalling.  The key here is to lead back the  ♣ J.  Can you see why?

Partner is going to win the  ♣ Q  and give you another heart ruff.  His only potential re-entry for another heart play is in clubs — specifically he might have the ♣ 10.  Obviously you are known to have the ace and king already.  Your play of the ♣ J tells partner that declarer doesn’t have it, and so his ♣ 10 is important, and is an entry , the possession of which he should signal.  So now when partner returns the ♥ 7 and declarer plays the ♥ 10 you realize that he led back his highest remaining heart.  Ergo, no ♣ 10.

That’s good news and bad news.  No more heart ruffs, but you can cash the ♣ A since you know declarer has that missing ♣ 10.  Now try the ♣ K.  This puts declarer in a very tough spot, since he started with three clubs.  He can ruff high, which will set up a spade trick for the defense (as it happens) and lead to down two — unlikely to be a good score.  But if he can get away with ruffing this low in dummy, he can get out for down 1 and minus 100.  For this to work, he needs you to have opened 2♣ on a five-card suit — but at matchpoints, in third chair, with a good suit, who knows?  And if you didn’t, then David raised on a doubleton queen…

So declarer tried ruffing with dummy’s three, got overruffed with the four, and another heart came through.  He ruffed with the queen, but now his heart winners were gone, and he had to take a diamond finesse.  That lost, and David played yet another heart through to promote a trump trick.

This was the whole deal:

Dealer:  E Vul: E-W		North
		♠	A K 2
		♥	J 9 8 2
		♦	A K 10 3
		♣	8 6
West				East
♠	9 6 5			♠	J 10 4
♥	Q			♥	A 7 5 4 3
♦	9 7 6			♦	Q 8 2
♣	A K J 9 5 2			♣	Q 4
		South
		♠	Q 8 7 3
		♥	K 10 6
		♦	J 5 4
		♣	10 7 3

That was down four, and all the matchpoints to Larry and David.  A great matchpoint deal all round, though:  David made a frisky raise that paid off bigtime when the opponents decided to compete rather than defend Three Clubs.  Pretty nice penalty double, too, don’t you think?

But the WOW! factor in this deal for me is that ♣ J — the discovery play to let partner know he should signal if he has the 10.  Even Larry says he’s proud of it, and I don’t blame him.  I know it would never have occurred to me.  Ever.

Yes, these guys are good.

Are you this good?

March 9th, 2009  ~  Ray Lee  ~  No Comments 

I’ve just about finished editing the book version of Larry Cohen’s My favorite 52, which will be available from a bridge supplier near you in the summer.  I don’t want to give away the whole show, but can’t resist talking about a couple of the deals in this blog.  I can say that it has rarely been my pleasure to work on such high quality material — anyone who missed the original software package is in for a treat with the book.

So here’s the first one that caught my eye:

Dealer:   W Vul:    N-S		North
		♠	A J 3 2
		♥	Q J 5
		♦
		♣	A K Q 5 3 2
West				East
♠				♠	10
♥				♥	A 8 7 4 3
♦				♦	J 7 5 4 2
♣				♣	10 7
		South
		♠
		♥
		♦
		♣

No, that’s not the end of the auction — quite.  Let’s go back to the start for a moment, though.  You get to be David Berkowitz, holding the East cards opposite Larry in a National Open Pairs in 2001.

Larry’s opening bid and rebid promised at least six diamonds and 11-15 points — they were, as usual, playing their version of Precision.  You should also be aware that they played support doubles, so West has at most two hearts.  After North’s splinter, David competed to the LAW level (how could he not, playing with Larry?). South bid more spades, and Larry wasn’t done yet either.  Notice that at this stage there had been nine calls in the auction, and no-one had yet passed!   You might think you would buy it here, but no — South goes on to slam.  Rather than figure out how to add a line to my auction box in the blog, I’ll give this as a bidding problem for East 🙂

David doubled.  After all, partner opened, and he has the heart ace.  The opening lead is ♥K.  How are you going to defend for the optimum score?

Okay, this is much easier as a problem than it would have been at the table.  Remember, no support double, so partner has at most two hearts.  Berkowitz overtook with the ace of hearts and returned a heart, which Larry ruffed!  Down one — and this was the only defense to beat the slam.

‘How did you figure it out?’ asked Larry afterwards.

‘Because I knew from Kx you would have led low,’ replied his partner?

‘Would I?’, wondered the author.  He’s not entirely sure, he says honestly; he hopes he would have, but we’ll never know.

Would you have made David’s defensive play of overtaking?  Even more importantly, would you lead low from Kx in partner’s suit against a slam?  I’ve been trying to track down a similar deal with the same theme that I’m fairly sure came up in a recent World Championship.  If memory serves, John Carruthers on opening lead did indeed lead low from Kx, and there was some discussion in the Daily Bulletin about why it was correct — and why overtaking the king was correct should he lead it. I believe it was in the Senior Bowl, so perhaps someone out there can track it down.

Here’s the full layout of Larry Cohen’s deal:

Dealer:   W Vul:     N-S		North
		♠	A J 3 2
		♥	Q J 5
		♦
		♣	A K Q 5 3 2
West				East
♠	9 7 6			♠	10
♥	K			♥	A 8 7 4 3
♦	A K Q 10 9 8 3			♦	J 7 5 4 2
♣	8 4			♣	10 7
		South
		♠	K Q 8 5 4
		♥	10 9 6 2
		♦	6
		♣	J 9 6

I’ll write about my own favorite out of Larry’s Favorite 52 in the next few days.  Meanwhile, thanks for the emails from those who thought I was at death’s door recently owing to Linda’s blog — just minor surgery and I’ll be back on the tennis court next week.  🙂

Life at the top must be different

January 20th, 2009  ~  Ray Lee  ~  4 Comments 

Anyone reading this blog knows that I really don’t play much bridge any more.  A good part of the reason for this is that I find the opponents to be generally unpleasant, and I don’t like spending time with them — I have better things to do.  Case in point was a couple of years ago in an evening 1-session team game at a Nationals.  Two deals stand out in my recollection.

In the first I held basically a yarborough except for five solid spades to the queen.  The opps bid uncontested to three spades, where they subsided.  I ventured a double (no-one was going to coup me out these tricks!) and was surprised to beat them only one trick.  Clearly they were too low! (Actually they were, so my double pushed the board.)   But they behaved as though I had done something either nefarious or ridiculous.  How dare I double them, was the attitude.  Especially for a one-trick set, at IMPs.

Shortly after that, I picked up something like six clubs to the ace, king, queen and a side card.  At favorable vulnerability partner passed and RHO opened a spade.  I decided that the circumstances warranted a jump to three clubs, ostensibly weak.  With partner already a passed hand this could hardly get into much trouble, and they probably wouldn’t play me for my side card when I was defending.  Lo and behold, it all came to pass.  This time, they practically accused me of cheating, spending much time quizzing my partner and examining the convention card.

I mention this, because the whole thing raised doubts — maybe I shouldn’t have taken these actions…  But today, I feel vindicated.  Let me digress a moment.

Larry Cohen published a very nice piece of software a few years back, entitled ‘My Favorite 52’, in which he walks you very instructively through the bidding and play of some favorite deals from his own career.  And are they ever good.  Master Point Press will be publishing this material in book form this summer, and I was doing some work on the manuscript this morning when I came across the following hand:

♠Q63 ♥— ♦983 ♣AKQ10964

Larry was holding this in the Cavendish, at favorable vulnerability.  Partner passed, and RHO opened one diamond.  What do you think Larry did?

YES- he bid three clubs, just like I did, and for the same reasons!  Partner raised to five, the opponents doubled, got off to the wrong lead, and failed to beat it after some rather neat declarer play by Larry.

Curiously, he doesn’t mention anyone accusing him of cheating, or spending hours cross-examining his partner.  I guess life at the top must be different.

Celebrity bridge

December 16th, 2008  ~  Ray Lee  ~  1 Comment 

Judy Kay-Wolff’s recent blog about show-biz great Billy Wilder reminded me of Eddie Kantar’s story about his would-be TV show from many years ago.  I’ve heard him tell it many times, and he included it in his Advanced Bridge Defense book, but it always gets me laughing anyway.

		North
		♦	7 4
West				East
♦	A J 9 2			♦	K 10 3
		South
		♦	Q 8 6 5

This diamond layout featured in a deal Eddie had set up to illustrate that sometimes in defense you need to underlead an ace — here, if you need four diamond tricks then as West you lead a low diamond, hoping for the above distribution.

I’ll let Eddie tell the rest of the story:

“The above layout was one I used many years ago in an ill-fated television show that never saw the light of day.  The format was to have one celebrity, usually a well-known movie star who supposedly played bridge, plus three other local players on the set.  After I interviewed the movie star, and talked for a moment or two to each of the other players, they would all adjourn to the bridge table and play one lesson-type hand I had set up — a hand they had never seen before.

For this hand the celebrity was the late Jim Backus, who was the movie voice of ‘Mr. Magoo’ for many years.  He was the nicest guy, but he hadn’t played bridge for decades and was afraid he’d make a fool of himself.  It had been agreed that we would never make the celebrity be the dummy, so I put Jim in the East seat.  I told him privately ‘If your partner ever leads a diamond, play the king and then play the ten.’  I know I wasn’t supposed to do that, but if you had seen him, you would have done the same.  He even wrote himself a little note about how to play those diamonds.

Well, the cameras started rolling (this was a one-shot deal, no second takes) with me off-camera as the commentator.  The bidding went as I had hoped.  West made the opening lead, which declarer won, and switched to clubs, West winning the ace.  Now West started to think as Jim glanced at the little note he had written.  Finally, to my horror, West laid down the ♦A!  Jim, of course, played the ♦K and then led the ♦10 out of turn! Talk about ill-fated TV shows.”

More neat stuff

December 9th, 2008  ~  Ray Lee  ~  No Comments 

Okay, I’m back from Boston, and I got around to taking some photos of our trump indicators.  We have two, shown below:

I also found this whist scoring thingy:

I remember some time ago my friend Tom Dawson explained to me how it worked, but I confess I’ve forgotten — perhaps someone out there knows.

What’s trump?

November 29th, 2008  ~  Ray Lee  ~  1 Comment 

Both Linda and Nick have blogged recently about bridge ephemera – curiosities and collectibles related to the game in some way. On of the first things I saw when we arrived here at the Nationals in Boston was a display of trump indicators.

Trump indicators date back to whist, a game in which sometimes the last card dealt was turned up as trumps, or in some forms of the game the deck was cut to decide trumps before the deal. The result was that it was quite easy to forget what the trump suit actually was. In early forms of bridge, trump indicators continued to be useful too.

Trump indicators were little mechanical reminders – usually one would be on the table during your whist game. They came in an incredible variety of shapes and sizes – everything from little boxes to cartoon figures, athletes, buildings, witches and devils. What they all have in common is that somewhere each of them displays the four suit symbols, and includes either a movable pointer or some other means of ‘indicating’ the trump suit for the deal.

Usually they are hard to date, but they were very common from the late 19^th century to the early 1930s, when contract bridge was starting to take over. Early ones have only the four suits, but around the beginning of the 20^th century trump indicators with ‘notrump’ included began to appear, for use in bridge games.

The display here in Boston is from the 650-piece plus collection of Joan Schepps, of Boca Raton Florida. Her collection has been exhibited around the world, as well as being featured in magazines and on national television. According to Joan, who purchased her first indicator at a flea market 25 years ago, the little curiosities have become a real collector’s item, and can be found on occasion at major auction houses like Sotheby’s. But you can still get bargains if you keep your eyes open.

Linda and I have a couple that we bought on eBay a few years ago, fairly cheaply. When we get home, I’ll add pictures of them to this blog. Meanwhile, here are some from Joan’s collection that you can see here in Boston this week.

So that was too easy?

November 24th, 2008  ~  Ray Lee  ~  7 Comments 

Most people seemed to find that first Patrick Jourdain problem preented too little challenge.  Okay, try this one instead.  West is in 5♦ on a spade lead.

Dealer: Vul:		North
		♠	–
		♥	–
		♦	–
		♣	–
West				East
♠	A			♠	65432
♥	2			♥	A6543
♦	QJ10932			♦	K
♣	QJ1098			♣	A2
		South
		♠	–
		♥	–
		♦	–
		♣	–

The solution…

November 23rd, 2008  ~  Ray Lee  ~  1 Comment 

This (see previous blog) is what I call an Aha! problem — once you see the answer, you wonder how you ever missed it, it’s so obvious.

The answer here is to win the spade (bet you all got that far!) and play the ♥A and then the ♥Q, throwing the other top spade form hand.  The defense cannot stop you reaching dummy again to cash the winning hearts.

Wtact out for another, more difficult, Jourdain problem in a little while.