Bob Mackinnon

Too Scientific?

Bidding to a contract is a process. At each step more information is made available. At each turn one may ask, ‘do I have enough information to place the contract with confidence?’ If the answer is ‘yes’, then one goes ahead and bids what one thinks is best. Of course, that is a judgment call based on present conditions. Extending the bidding process will get you more information, but will that information increase the chance of your arriving at a better contract, and, having done so, will the additional information exchange decrease your chances of achieving a high score?

The ACBL Player of the Year for 2012 is Zia Mahmood, the fifth time he has earned the award. In an interview published in the ACBL Bulletin he criticizes himself for being ‘too scientific’ on this hand from the Blue Ribbon Pairs: AKQ982 K8 AKQJ2. As a scientist I resent it when players use the term ‘too scientific’ when they mean ‘too chicken’. His LHO opened the bidding 1 and his RHO bid 1. In retrospect Zia thinks that with his cards he should have done what Frederic Wrang did, overcall 1 , then bid 6. Zia, no hand hog he, is willing to let his partner make the final decision if the situation warrants it. Partner holds T73 T74 J964 T98, and will correct to 6 . There is an entry to dummy in clubs for a heart play towards the King.

Wrang practiced good science when he provided the relevant information and his partner made the choice. The opposition’s bidding increases the probability of finding a useful black card in the dummy, so it is against the odds that partner has a totally worthless hand; even if he has, a heart might be led solving that problem. All in all, given the information he had at the start, Wrang would have been unlucky to go down in 6 .

Taking Everything into Account
Very often we read analysis based on a discussion of what can go wrong. A better question is:  what is the probability that something will go right? Here is a hand that came up on the last board of my last matchpoint session.

W
Bob
K86
AKQ978
87
A3
 
E
Bela
AQ94
85
QJ105
KQ6
West
East
1
1
2
4
4NT
5
6
Pass

 

Looking at both hands, one sees that 6 is hopeless on a diamond lead, but how probable is it that a diamond will be led? I maintain a diamond is unlikely to be led unless the opening leader holds both the ace and the king. Otherwise, in the miasma of uncertainty a passive lead is probable. Let’s say the odds of a diamond lead are less than 1 in 3.

If I could have seen partner’s cards I might have bid 6NT to decrease the odds of a diamond lead to the theoretic limit of 1 in 4, but that would constitute negative thinking, more appropriate to IMP scoring where the overtrick is not important. Making 510 in 4 was worth a undeservedly high matchpoint score of 5 out of 12 as some were playing in 3NT taking just 12 tricks. Making 1010 in 6 was worth 10 out of 12.

A further observation on the bidding: 4NT was a bad bid in theory, the 5 response giving my RHO the opportunity to double for a diamond lead. We would be held to 11 tricks, a  bottom on the board. The potential disadvantage bypassing 4NT and blasting to 6 is that it increases the chances of the lead of the unsupported A. The opening leader may feel the need to take his trick before it goes away. So, although there is a risk attached, 4NT as a false indicator of balanced power may act as an inhibitor.

If the reader feels that one shouldn’t risk a score of 5 in order to achieve a score of 10 when, in theory, there is an obvious risk of scoring zero on a diamond lead, he should consider a posteriori odds based on what actually happened. The chance of getting a diamond lead was 1 in 13. Yes, of the 12 other pairs in the field, only one was held to 11 tricks –  all others made 13 tricks. If one were in 4 and got an inspired diamond lead, one’s score for 450 would have been 1/2 . So, in effect, bidding slam risks half a matchpoint to make 10, because a diamond lead would be disastrous in either case.

The Mastermind
As soon as he gets a good feeling about the hand, the average player is ready to launch into some form of Blackwood – ‘decide not describe’ being the prevailing attitude. Why? The reasons are partly psychological, and partly practical. Players learn that bad bidding pays off due to the uncertainty it creates in the opponents’ minds, especially for those who tend to be passive in their approach through fear of giving something away. The Mastermind is the type who takes things into his own hands early in the auction and places the contract after a minimal exchange of information. He takes his partner out of the loop, because he feels his educated guess will prove better than a partner’s reasoned conclusion.

Where do we draw the line? How much information is enough information? If one considers the Zia hand described above, a successful approach may have been to overcall 6 immediately. One might even get doubled. That would rule out getting to 6 when that is right, so we can’t say we condone that approach, successful as it may turn out. On a lesser hand where slam is unlikely, players who concentrate on spades and neglect the minors are following the expert’s path, they think, because a spade game both scores more and needs less to make. Slam is different, as merely getting to a makeable slam usually scores well. An inferior game may be reached when it turns out slam in a minor was there for the bidding, but the cost of missing it is minimal at the club level. The players assume that the normal conditions apply and lazily follow the well-beaten path in the game zone leading to 3NT or 4 of a major without looking for the special circumstances that may turn out to be slam-favorable.

Mastermind or Scientist?
Because of the scoring rules bidding systems are eschew from the start tilting the auctions in preferred directions. Information provided is biased towards reaching a preferred goal. Players may add their own bias, as I did on the following deal.

W
Pard
AK96
AKQ5
K96
54
 
E
Bob
1084
9864
83
AQJ6
West
East
1(pass)
1NT
3NT (DBL)
All Pass

 

After partner opened 1 I felt the primary feature of my hand was the fine club suit. The hearts didn’t appeal, and the hand was worth just the one bid, which served to limit the HCP and described the shape if not the components thereof. Partner did the right thing given what I had told him, but much to my chagrin 3NT was doubled by my RHO. My philosophy is, ‘if you have made the bed, you get to lie in it,’ so I passed and faced the lead of the T, which held the trick. There followed a long pause during which my hopes rose immeasurably. Could it be? Yes! The opening leader switched to a spade, ducked to the J. When the smoke had cleared, I made 9 tricks, scoring +750, for a miracle top.

 That’s not the whole story or even the most interesting part. Most played in 4 from my direction. With the K offside that contract can be defeated easily enough on a diamond lead, however, 3 declarers did escape that defence. What about that opening bid? The control-rich hand is worth more than 19 HCP, more like 23 HCP, so the proper opening bid is 2NT.  This solves a potential play problem by placing declarer on the proper side after 3 Stayman from partner. I suppose some who went down in 4 felt they didn’t deserve their bad score because they had done nothing wrong, but I think they were unjustly rewarded for joining the herd who rigidly followed the rules by opening 1. On the other hand, those who opened 2NT and made 4 declared from the right side deserve a reward for their initiative.

A Mastermind thinks his judgment is better than a set of system rules that poorly fit his current situation. It’s not like choosing on which side of the road one prefers to drive today. The late Marshall Miles was famous for suggesting bids that others would miss, and he always had a good argument for doing so. In many aspects of partnership agreement it may pay to be flexible. This reduces the information content involved but that may not be important if the final decision is to left to the player best suited to making it, himself. That approach doesn’t work so well if both players are striving to be masterminds; someone has to be reliable and tolerant.

I saw recently a documentary on the Lindbergh kidnapping in which an ‘expert’ speculated that Charles Lindbergh himself masterminded the crime. Unbelievable! But it turns out that he was a perfectionist, a pro-Nazi racist, and a non-believer in the democratic process, who after the age of 54 fathered 7 children in Germany with 3 mistresses. The secret families weren’t revealed until 2003. One is reminded of another genuine hero, Thomas Jefferson, who also had an emotionally starved relationship with his numerous illegitimate offspring. I mention this as a reminder that although we may pride ourselves on our reasoned, technically sound, and largely successful approach to the external world, our actions are sometimes ruled by undercurrents of emotion that defy logic. Bridge is a pursuit during which we can demonstrate our rationality, but that is only a part of the game. Most of the time we are sane, but there is always a finite probability that even the best players will occasionally fall off their perch for no apparent reason. Luckily, it’s only a game.

Partnership Matters
It is in the nature of things that many of the best partnerships consist of a combination of 2 types, the Mastermind and his Servant. As Terence Reese once commented, don’t underestimate the value of reliability. The flamboyant adventurer need a reliable partner on whom he can count to provide that little bit of undisclosed extra that makes his gambles pay off, a partner who won’t push too hard for fear of getting too high. On the other hand the cautious underbidder needs an active partner to push things along. This is true especially of pairs who play a ‘natural’ system where both players are allowed to made judgmental decisions as the auction progresses.

What happens when 2 highly aggressive players who are fond of making unusual pressure bids, i.e. masterminds, get together? Will it be chaos or can they learn to get out of each other’s way and function as a smoothly operating unit? The latest experiment to watch will be the new pairing of Brad Moss and Joe Grue. Brad Moss became ACBL Player of the Year when playing with the careful Fred Gitelman, and Joe Grue became a feared opponent when playing Precision with Curtis Cheek, a system that imposes a certain degree of discipline. Their maiden voyage in the 2012 Buffet Cup was not a great success when they were outplayed by Nicola Smith and Sally Brock on this deal from the BAM 7-board segment won by Europe 3-1.

W
Moss
AQ10543
AQ72
QJ10
 
E
Grue
K8
AJ75
K1086
943
W
Moss
N
North
E
Grue
S
South
1
Pass
1NT*
2
2
Pass
3
Pass
4
Pass
4
Pass
4
Pass
6
Pass
6
Dbl
All Pass
 

 

Here we have the evidence of a moment of madness. Like Hitler’s invasion of Russia, Grue’s 6 bid was far too ambitious. Moss failed to come up with A, along with all the other good stuff. I suppose Brad got to feel something of what Field Marshal Paulus felt at Stalingrad about the paucity of the resources being provided. Sally and Nicola did much better, sedately stopping in 4 , making 10 tricks. I imagine they were surprised to win a board that appears routine. Can we attribute the loss to Trendafilo’s innocent 2 overcall on AK8753 which had the effect of a red flag waved in the face of a bull? Just joking. We shall follow the Moss-Grue development with interest to see how they handle the problem of sharing the captaincy.


1 Comment

Bob HerremanFebruary 24th, 2013 at 7:22 am

Nice article.
And well written
I enjoyed reading it.

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