What You Don’t Know

When I was a country boy I often heard the farmers say, ‘what you don’t know won’t hurt you.’ This seemed to me to be a short-sighted attitude especially as the world had just been introduced to invisible radioactive fallout, but looking back I can see that they were saying we shouldn’t worry about things, like rainfall, over which we have no control. In a purely practical sense sometimes one is happier not knowing everything. That attitude applies well to bridge as well as to marriage. We’ll look at the consequence of not knowing in a deal played in the recent European Open Teams Championships where an English foursome faced an Irish-Welsh team.

BBO commentators, and the English ones in particular, I think it is fair to say, are often shaking their heads over optimistically bid slams, regardless of whether or not the slams make. One commentator even speculated that a pair would do better in the long run if they decided not to bid slams at all. This is going too far. If on the bidding the slam appears to be a good proposition one should bid it, especially if you have a drop of Irish blood flowing in your veins. If not, a drop of Irish whisky will do. One shouldn’t rely too strongly on the a priori odds. As an auction progresses, information is exchanged between partners. Based on this information the odds are adjusted until a player makes a decision one way or the other. The accuracy of the adjustment depends on the quality of the bidding system in operation. A player will not know everything, as do those who can see all 4 hands, but what he doesn’t know may not hurt him.

The Luck of the Irish I have been re-reading Lausanne 1979, Peter Pigot’s amusing memoir on the European Bridge Championships of thirty years ago in which Ireland won the bronze medal. I was reminded of the hard feelings that existed between the Irish and the British players at that time, and now 30 years later I was being treated to another confrontation, the intensity not in the least diminished by the presence of 2 Welsh players added to the mix. The animosity of the Welsh goes back even farther than the cruel repressions of Elizabeth I to the age of Edward I.

Here is a hand for which expert analysts with a view of all 4 hands relied too heavily on the a priori odds. Would you, like Irishman Terry Walsh, bid the vulnerable Grand Slam on the evidence available?

Goodwin	Walsh
♠ K 7 5 4 2	♠ A 10 8 3	1♠	2♥
♥ K J 9 8 3	♥ A Q 10 6 4	4♦	4 NT (RKCB in hearts)
♦ 4	♦ A 9 6	5♠	5 NT
♣ A Q	♣ K	6♠	7♥
		Pass

 

RKCB asks a simple question, but there are those that cannot stand giving a simple answer – they have to put their own spin on the proceedings. Here Peter Goodwin said he had the ♥Q to go along with the ♣A and ♠K, but as we can see he didn’t. The excuse is that 5 trumps to the king-jack are as good as 4 to the king-queen, and most often they are as good, but sometimes they aren’t, especially when partner may be stretching towards a Grand Slam. The auction then took on a life of its own. From Walsh’s point-of-view, partner said he had the ♥Q when obviously he didn’t, so must have had a good reason to force the auction to the 6-level. Walsh asked about kings, and was forced to bid the Grand after an inconveniently truthful response. As 13 tricks were easily taken, if one were so inclined one might imagine divine intervention at work here, a view countered by the fact that the English readily won the match despite the loss of 13 IMPs on the deal. To the grossly materialistic mind the question is: how good was the Grand given what Walsh didn’t know after Goodwin bid 5♠?

The Shifting Odds in the Spade Suit If we consider the spade suit in isolation, a simple approach of cashing the ace and king will score 5 tricks whenever the spades are split 2-2, a 40% a priori probability. This does not mean that Walsh has bid a Grand Slam with only a 40% chance of success. As commentator David Bird correctly pointed out the presence of the 10♠ gives an added chance of dropping the ♠Q or ♠J singleton in the East, in which case declarer can finesse West for the missing honor on the second round. The success rate has risen to 46%, still not high enough to justify the risk. A Grand Slam bid and made gains 13 IMPs over a small slam, but loses 17 IMPs if it goes down 1. This means one should have a winning percentage in the spade suit above 57%.

From North’s point-of-view the odds of bringing in the spade suit change with the honors held by the opener who holds 5 spades to the ♠K, leaving him with 4 vacant places in the spade suit. The defenders also hold 4 spades, so it is a question of the likely honor holdings when the spades are randomly distributed 4-4.

Partner	Opponents	Combinations	Percentage	Probability of Success
Q J xx	xxxx	15	20%	100%
Q xxx	J xxx	20	30%	96%
J xxx	Q xxx	20	30%	58%
xxxx	Q J xx	15	20%	46%

 

The overall percentage of success of bringing in 5 tricks in the spade suit is roughly 75%, or 3:1 odds in favor of bidding the Grand Slam. In fact, the odds were better than that. In this day of indiscriminate interference, when the opponents have 19 cards in the minors and fail to enter the bidding, the chances of one of them being void in spades is less than the expected 10%. As one can see from the table Walsh would be unlucky to find both the Queen and Jack held by the opposition, thus being reduced to a meager 46% chance of success before the spade suit is played. It’s time to see the full deal:

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

 

The 2-2 spade split renders the play trivial. In other room the Hackett twins bid to 6S only, on this auction:

Jason H.	Julian H.
♠ K 7 5 4 2	♠A 10 8 3	1♠	2 NT (spade raise)
♥ K J 9 8 3	♥ A Q 10 6 4	3♥	3♠
♦ 4	♦ A 9 6	4♦	4 NT (RKCB in spades)
♣ A Q	♣ K	5♥	6♠
		Pass

 

Once Julian discovered that the ♠Q was absent, he avoided the Grand Slam in spades. Both he and Terry made the correct final decision given what they knew at the time, but only one would score well on the board. One might say that Julian was ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much.’ Knowledge doesn’t necessarily pay off in the short term.

Yet Another Convention The RKCB auctions of both teams were not up to the task, the main reason behind this being that the asking bidder needed to know the secondary honors held in both of the suits shown by his partner. What was required was a 2-suited RKCB. Here is my version of such an asking bid, the Siamese Control Asking Bid.

When a player has shown length in 2 suits, partner can ask for the total number of controls held (Ace=2, King=1) counting all 4 aces and the 2 kings in the advertised suits. The responses are: Step1 = 0-2 controls, Step2 =3, Step3=4, etc. A subsequent ask inquiries about the number of queens held in the 2 suits with Step1 = 0, Step2 = 1, Step3=both. If there is still bidding room below slam, a bid in an off-suit can be used as a non-specific Last Train bid, seeking extras by way of critical jacks. The above deal provides an example of where 4NT can be used in this manner.

♠ K 7 5 4 2	♠ A 10 8 3	1♠	2♥
♥ K J 9 8 3	♥ A Q 10 6 4	4♦	4 NT (Siamese in the majors)
♦ 4	♦ A 9 6	5 ♥ (4)	5 NT (major suit queens?)
♣ A Q	♣ K	6 ♣ (0)	6 ♦ (Last Train)
		6♥	Pass

 

The 6D bid should be interpreted as looking for a well placed ♠J, the ♥J being redundant in a 10-card fit. If Goodwin had the ♠J the a priori odds of taking 5 spade tricks would have been 58%, just enough to justify the risk of bidding the Grand.

This treatment is useful when there is a double fit and the major concern is the quality of the long suits held. Less important is the nature of the shortages in the off-suits. If one wishes to preserve the use of one-suited RKCB which brings shortages into play, in the above example a bid of 5♣ followed by 5NT can be used as Siamese without loss.