Making the Most of Mistakes

There is a science for operating within a faulty system which is not given enough coverage in the bridge literature. Mistakes are human. We can’t pretend they don’t exist, so what we have to do is make allowances, first by being careful ourselves, and second by gaining fairly from the mistakes of others.  Buy low, sell high, as it were.

 In Bridge, as in Real Life, not all the mistakes one makes turn out to regrettable. The regrettable mistakes are mostly due to reasonable inaction, or cowardice, if you prefer. The happy mistakes are actions from which there are derived unmerited gains. Some beautiful people are the result of a mistake by one parent or the other. With regard to bridge, the best mistakes are those that lead to big favourable swings, as on the following deal played recently in a matchpoint game at our club.

The opening bid was a Precision 2♣ , natural and limited to at most 15 HCP. 2♦ was a relay asking for more information. This is the usual route when responder wants to explore game options. My following 2♠ was natural and forcing. John had a brainstorm and thought 2♠ agreed hearts. Eventually I caught on that something was wrong, and as 5♣ would have been a worthless contract at matchpoints, I jumped to slam. The lead was the ♦7 from ♦ QT972. John ducked to his singleton ♦J and wrapped up 13 tricks.

An intriguing question is why one sometimes takes a senseless action at the table. (Ducking to the ♦J doesn’t strike me as a perfectly logical move either, but as declarer John has nerves of steel.) The previous deal had been a disaster when I insisted on playing in 3NT holding 5-5 in the majors and with a void! Don’t ask me why. So I suspect there was a carry-over effect and John’s mind was still at work subconsciously trying figure out what Bob thought he was doing. One has to forget past mistakes at the beginning of each deal. Anyway, top-for-top made for an average round.

The opening leader could not be expected to lead a spade from King doubleton, so it may be said that slam was not a bad gamble. The bidding of a worthless suit followed by a jump to slam can sometimes be a deliberate and desperate punt hoping to catch the opposition unawares. That is why we need Lightner Doubles. More frequently, we observe even experts bidding topless suits in competition and gaining some advantage from the spreading of a false impression. That has become the standard practice with preempts. Which leads us to the next deal in which a declarer missed the chance for a top.

The opening lead is the ♥T. Declarer finds himself in a contract with a good chance of a fine matchpoint score.  How should he play the trumps?  Obviously North has more diamonds than South, so the a priori odds favour playing South for the ♠Q. Declarer, looking nor further, led the ♠J off dummy and passed it to North who won the ♠Q, led the ♦Q to the ♦K, got another ruff and led the ♣ 2 to South’s ♣ K. Another ruff followed. As some NS made 3♦, down 1 was not a disaster, but making game would have been a top.

North stated he was emulating Zia by preempting with ♠ Q94 ♥ T ♦ QJT985 ♣ JT2. I think it was a mistake to preempt on such a hand, the mistake being that it drove us to a makeable game we would be unlikely to bid on our own. The result overrides my disapproval, but let’s consider declarer’s reaction to the ♥T lead. Bidding one suit, getting a raise, then leading a different suit always raises suspicions. As dummy we see things clearly, and it was clear as glass the heart was a singleton. South had promised good diamonds with his vulnerable raise, so North could hope diamonds would provide an entry. What could North be hoping to promote in hearts?  On this basis as a safety measure declarer should play the trumps from the top if he judges he is in a good matchpoint contract. If he is really hungry, he can play North for a 3=1=6=3 and finesse him for the ♠Q, making 11 tricks…but that would be overkill.

Every system has a weakness. Established partnerships should be prepared to utilize this space for rare hands that can’t be described otherwise.  What should one open with this hand which is far outside the realm of normalcy: ♠ KT3 ♥ — ♦ 32 ♣ AKQJ9862, a 4-loser hand with a solid 8-card suit? For some this is a textbook 5♣  opening bid (as suggested by Amalya Kearse in Bridge Conventions Complete). One is pretty sure the hand will be played in clubs, but if one opens 1♣ , vulnerable, one is flirting with danger coming from 3 sides. A simple agreement for the infrequent partnership is to define a 3NT opening bid as a solid minor with an outside control, but players are so intent on preempting the other side that they forbid themselves having the outside control. True, a no-control agreement makes it easier for responder, but as things turned out at least one 1♣  bidder might have wished 3NT was an option.

I avoid preempts with outside stuff, preferring the weaker variety as I feel this has the better chance of making a profit. Naturally, I would have liked having the ♥J to accompany the ♥Q98, but no hand is perfect. (Some like it hot.)  There is a rule that after one preempts one shuts up, and passing 5♣ * would have resulted in an average score, but bidding on proved better, although I had my doubts briefly after my LHO doubled.

An unusual lead tells a story. Here the opening lead was the ♦J, which told me South didn’t have any clubs. After the pitch of a club, the ♠A followed by the ♠7 set up my ♠Q. South got his club ruff, but that was all, and I made my 11 tricks. Where was the mistake? Both 5♣  and 5♥ appear normal after the fact, so the error was that South doubled on ♥KT7, the sound of the auction, and, maybe, a bit of history.

‘Good bid’, said John with a straight face, but you never know when he is joking. That was the extent of the celebration.  On another occasion after John had made a slam on a pseudo-squeeze, our expert opponent commented petulantly, ‘doesn’t your partner ever smile?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ replied John, ‘I saw him smile once.’ Once at a funeral, he might have said. I defended myself by observing that one is not supposed to smile when one has got a good result. In that case it would be extra rude to praise partner for merely taking advantage an opponent’s error.

I deplore the spreading in professional sports of the exuberant demonstration, especially when the game is not yet over. Even golf has been infected, FGS. Some say that baseball must be played with emotion, but I say emotion is what causes a shortstop to boot an easy double play ground ball up the middle, or a batter with the bases loaded to swing at an outside pitch in the dirt. Good play is a product of practice, concentration, and control. That is what sport is supposed to teach kids. Remember, greed and fear are emotions.

Often the winner is the one who makes the fewest errors. When declaring a hand, one should play in a manner that increases the chances a defender will make an error. This is true especially at matchpoints where the overtrick is important. Too often in the past as declarer I have assumed perfect defence and played for safety; now I play to induce errors even when there is some danger involved. The greatest effect comes in timing. One attempts to play on the defender’s fear that makes him grab his aces before thinking out the play in full, as on this simple part score.

The lead was the ♣ 5, and I could see I had made a mistake in opting for a heart contract when a spade ruff loomed large. Making full use of the ♣ 87 in hand, I ducked in dummy, my RHO winning with the ♣ Q (yes!) and returning the ♥T. Clearly I had created a false impression. His prime motive was not to give away anything, but that kind of play does give away something important – opportunity. I ran this to the ♥J in dummy and had to return to my hand to draw the remaining trumps. A low diamond might work, but transportation would remain a problem and I would be forced eventually to lead spades disadvantageously from dummy. I tried the effect of the ♦K. My RHO grabbed his ace, and continued his passive defence by returning a second heart, giving me free access to my hand. Now I could run off my 8 tricks in the red suits to put pressure on the defenders with the result I scored the ♠Q in the confusion, 9 tricks in all, a top instead of the bottom I deserved.

If the first trump exit can be excused, we cannot see the merit of grabbing the ♦A.  By holding up one round and receiving his partner’s high-low signal, my RHO could have led a diamond for a ruff, won the ♣ A and taken a ruff in spades, 7 easy tricks on a not-too-difficult defence. All that was required was a bit of awareness.

My opponents on that hand were seasoned veterans and frequent winners at our club, as were my opponents on the next hand played late in a Swiss Teams match. Both pairs opt for passivity for its own sake. Transportation was again the key.

Pard thought we were playing ‘drop-dead’ Stayman and I knew we weren’t. One must think positively. We were vulnerable, so making 3NT could swing the close match in our favour. The lead was the ♦4, won in dummy. This was so suspicious that I decided to play the opening leader for the missing aces and the ♠T. Accepting the gift of the entry to dummy, I made full use with a 2-for-1 finesse of the ♣ T. When I opened my eyes the ♦T had won. On a low spade towards dummy, the ♠T popped up, covered by the Jack and Queen. A heart came back, and my RHO erred by taking his ♥A in front of the ♥KJ, to continue a hopeless diamond. If he had held up, my transportation would have been threatened. The hand had become easy as I could play the ♠K to establish the ♠98 with the dummy entry safely intact. There were still 4 losers, but I had 9 tricks any which way I chose to take them. I opted for safety by not repeating the club finesse. The 10 IMPs gained were as welcome as they were unexpected, being just enough to win the event, a pleasure made all the sweeter for being shared among friends – with happy smiles all around.