Misadventures In Manhattan

Time for some hands. Here are a few odd ones.

Love all, dlr E

          ♠ 9 8 4 3
          ♥ 8 6
          ♦ A 7 5
          ♣ K 10 5 4
♠ 7                   ♠ K Q 10
♥ 10 4 2    [ ]       ♥ A J 3
♦ J 9 8 4 2           ♦ Q 10 3
♣ A Q 3 2             ♣ 9 8 7 6
          ♠ A J 6 5 2
          ♥ K Q 9 7 5
          ♦ K 6
          ♣ J

 E    S    W    N
1♣   1♠   3♣   3♠
Pass 4♠   Pass Pass
Dble Pass Pass Pass

One of the issues with Michaels (and other two-suited overcalls, for that matter) is deciding on the strength the bid shows. Nominally, we play the weak-strong idea, where the Michaels call is either weak or strong, and with middling values you don’t use it. I can never figure out where a given hand lies on the scale, and in this case, took a guess that since it was neither a rock-crusher nor feeble, it must count as middling. Therefore I overcalled 1♠ hoping to get the hearts in later. Neither West nor North have too much, but that didn’t stop West from pre-empting and Agent 99 from refusing to be shut out. Of course, over 3♠ the raise to game is automatic, and the only reason I didn’t redouble was because I wasn’t sure how far down 5♣ would go if the distribution was a bit wild, as it certainly sounded to be.

In fact, having only one clear entry to the table and no spade honor there means that I need to find the cards distributed with some friendliness. West opened the A♣ and switched to a diamond. I was confident at that point that the ♥A and ♠KQ were on my right, of course, but managing repeated leads towards my hand is problematic. My trumps aren’t good enough to cope with a 4-0 break, and for a heart ruff to stand up for a second entry, I need East to have three or four hearts. Fortunately, everything worked, so we got a top. Nobody else ventured higher than 3♠ - West’s pre-empt back-fired.

This effort deserved better.

E-W vul, dlr E

          ♠ Q 6 3
          ♥ A
          ♦ Q 8 7 6 2
          ♣ K 8 7 3
♠ J 9                 ♠ 10 5
♥ K 8 7 5   [ ]       ♥ 10 9 4 3 2
♦ A J 10              ♦ 5
♣ Q 10 6 5            ♣ A J 9 4 2
          ♠ A K 8 7 4 2
          ♥ Q J 6
          ♦ K 9 4 3
          ♣ -

Pass 1♠   Pass 2♦
Pass 2♠   Pass 4♠ 
Pass 5♣   Pass 5♥
Pass 6♠   All pass

I was playing with a serious 2 over 1 Game Forcing aficionado, so the North hand is the very minimum he might have held, and I had every reason to hope that we would have play based on the double fit. Unfortunately, West’s holding leaves you one down, with no escape. A terrible score, because the vast majority were content to rest in game. But that is really unjust.

Speaking of travesties...

Game all, dlr E

           ♠ 8 3
           ♥ Q 9 6 5 3
           ♦ K Q 9 7
           ♣ A 9
♠ J 10 6               ♠ A Q 9 4
♥ 10         [ ]       ♥ A K 2
♦ A 8 6                ♦ J 5 4 3 2
♣ Q 10 6 5 4 2         ♣ K
           ♠ K 7 5 2
           ♥ J 8 7 4
           ♦ 10
           ♣ J 8 7 3

1♦ Pass 1♠(!) Pass
3♠ Pass Pass Pass

West mis-sorted his hand and responded in a three-card suit. He discovered the mistake in time to pass the raise. Then, aided by a little confusion in the defence, he managed to scramble one diamond, one club, two hearts, and six trump tricks for +170. This was of course a cold top, with most people playing in no-trump and making seven or eight tricks.

What can I tell you. I’ve got them so scared they can’t even sort their cards.

Minor Suit Auctions

For hands that must be opened with a minor suit, we open our better minor, at least a three-card suit. Holding 4-4 in the minors, we would normally open 1D, with 3-3 the bid would be 1C. Playing 5-card majors, I think it is absolutely necessary to play inverted raises. Inverted minor suit raises were an original feature of the Kaplan-Sheinwold bidding system. K-S tried to embody certain principles into their system – weak hands bid high, to pre-empt the opposition, while strong hands bid low, to use bidding space effectively. Accordingly, 1C-3C is a pre-emptive raise, while 1C-2C is natural but forcing 10+hcp (both raises are alertable). And similarly for diamond raises.

After a single raise, opener and responder can show no-trump stoppers, or move towards the minor suit game or slam. I’m assuming responder would have bid a 4-card major rather than raising the minor, so major-suit bids from either side should be just stoppers, not suits. If opener rebids 2NT, he is showing stoppers in both majors. The most worrying situation is if responder has a bare 10-11hcp and/or opener has a minimum 10-12hcp opening. It is important to identify these hands so that we can stop in 3 of the minor when both are minimum, and not drive ourselves into a hopeless 3NT on a combined 20-22hcp. Either hand shows a minimum by rebidding 3 minor at the first opportunity. Any other bid at the first rebid indicates better than the bare minimum, say, 13+. So for example, 1C-2C; 3C responder knows that opener holds the bare minimum, probably a long club suit but only 10-12 hcp. If responder’s raise was based on 10hcp and 5-card club support, prospects for game look a bit dim – we have a big fit, but not much outside. A pass of 3C is reasonable. Another example: 1C-2C; 2H-3C; 3D responder has shown a minimum raise, but opener has kept going, so responder should be looking for game now. Opener has shown stoppers in hearts and diamonds, so responder can bid 3NT if he has a spade stopper. With a half-stopper (Qx or Jxx), he can bid 3S, to ask opener if he has a half-stopper also. Any other bid would be pushing us towards 5C, since spades must be unguarded for no-trump.

When a minor suit is agreed as trumps and either player wants to check on aces, 4NT as Blackwood is problematic. Often, there is insufficient space for the response without going past game. The suggested solution is Redwood – using 4D as the asking bid when clubs are trumps, and 4H as the asking bid when diamonds are trumps. The extra two or three steps are valuable, and the bids are generally easy to recognize and unambiguous.

Holding less than 10hcp but with good trump support (might be a strong 4-cards but usually is 5+cards), responder wants to make a pre-emptive raise to the three level. A problem is that the potential range of responder’s hand is quite wide. Depending on vulnerability, distribution, and other circumstances, responder may wish to make the bid holding anything from 4-9hcp. Opener with a good but not great hand, say about 17hcp, then doesn’t know whether to make a move toward game or to leave well enough alone. A solution is to use the jump-shift in the other minor as an extra tier to the raise. (These bids are not very effective as pre-empts, so using them this way is better.) So
1D – 3D = pre-emptive raise with 4-6hcp
1D – 3C = pre-emptive diamond raise with 7-9hcp
1C – 3C = pre-emptive raise with 4-6hcp
1C – 2D = pre-emptive club raise with 7-9hcp
(all alertable)
This isn’t pinpoint accuracy, clearly, but it does give opener some chance to guess if more than 3minor has a chance.

Opening 3 of a minor is pre-emptive and may be a good 6-card suit if desperate, usually a not-so-good 7-carder. Opening 4 usually shows 8+ cards. In between is the Gambling 3NT, defined to be a solid 7- or 8-card suit with no outside A or K (minimum suit AKQxxxx). Responder can pass with stoppers in two or three suits. If he doesn’t want to chance it, he can bid 4C or 5C for pass or correct by the opener. If he feels slam-minded, he can use a 4D response to ask about a singleton. Opener rebids 4H or 4S to show a singleton in the bid suit, 4NT with no singleton, 5 of his suit to indicate a singleton in the other minor. (Holding solid clubs, you don’t want to bid 5D to show a singleton in case that wasn’t what responder needed. So bid 5C, and have that show the singleton diamond. And then when holding diamonds, you have to be consistent and bid 5D to show the singleton club.)

2/1 System Philosophy

If you play 2/1 Game Forcing, you are really playing two systems. The first system applies from first and second seat, when a 2/1 response is indeed forcing to game, and the second system is for third and fourth seat, when it isn’t. I find this arrangement somewhat unattractive, for a number of reasons.

First of all, the first system doesn’t really suit me. To make the basic premise possible, you really need to play sound opening bids. In order for a 2/1 response to stay within reasonable limits, responder has to be able to count upon good high-card strength being part of the opening bid. Otherwise, the requirements for making the response have to be higher, and the strain placed on the forcing 1NT response (etc) is going to be too great – your ability to bid hands where responder isn’t strong enough for a 2/1 will suffer. (And note that the higher the requirements are, the more hands there will be where responder doesn’t meet them.) I much prefer to start bidding when I have a hand, rather than lie in wait and hope the opponents haven’t bid game before the bidding gets back to me. When sitting down to play Standard in a pick-up game, I’m inclined to tell my partner I will open any 12-count, and with the right distribution, 11-counts and 10-counts get opened too. I don’t think you can do that and play 2/1 Game Forcing. Listen to strong-club players: they will tell you that a big advantage of their system is that the other bids are limited, and they can open a ropey 10- or 11-count 1S without worrying that partner will go ballistic on small values. Getting into the auction is good.

Second of all, I’m not convinced that the first system really delivers the benefits claimed for it. The major advantage claimed is that after the 2/1 response, since you are in a forcing auction there is no need for jumping around to show strength, and both partners can relax and explore the correct strain and whether there are slam possibilities. Whereas, in a typical Standard auction, neither opener nor responder is immediately sure whether game or slam is in the picture, and bidding space gets wasted as one (or both) jumps to show strength. I will concede there is some truth to this picture – some truth – but the overall assessment is not nearly so one-sided as advocates make out. For some slam hands where the auction starts 1major – 2something, having the response be game-forcing does make life easier. But those hands don’t crop up as often as you would wish, and if the response isn’t game-forcing, that doesn’t mean that you can’t bid the right game or slam anyway. Much is made of the fact that many bids and sequences are discussed and carefully defined, whereas in Standard they typically aren’t. Well, hello – you can discuss and define your bids playing any system. That doesn’t actually count as an advantage for 2/1, especially since if you question any random pair of 2/1 players, their interpretations of some bids and sequences will differ, sometimes quite significantly. Much is also made of the many gadgets that 2/1 users typically play. Again, that doesn’t actually count since you can play almost every such gadget without a 2/1 response being game-forcing.

And there is a down-side to the system. Responding hands that are pretty good but not quite strong enough for a 2/1 response are an obvious weak point. Such hands will be good enough to make game if opener is just a little better than minimum, and not being able to make a natural 2/1 response to start the ball rolling will make such games harder to find. As a matter of raw probabilities, I think these cases will occur much more often than the slam hands that are made easier. Then there is the issue of auctions that start with a 2/1 response and where one (or both) of the hands has some extras, but not too much. It is not unknown for a 2/1 pair to get too high by simply failing to stop, because (since there’s no jumping going on and many bids are unlimited upwards) one (or both) of them was unsure that he had actually shown his full values. I grew up in the Acol world, where the catch-phrases were stuff like “get the hand off your chest” and “bid what you think you can make”. Sometimes we jumped too high, but we didn’t putter around and stumble too high. That’s just undignified.

Then third of all, consider the difference of approach needed for the second system, the system for third and fourth seat, and realize that it is basically Standard. But here, rather than sound opening bids, the rule is that unsound openings are encouraged, as weak as 7-9 points at favorable vulnerability, especially in third seat. But there is nothing to stop a third or fourth seat hand from holding a maximum opening. So the 2/1 Game Force has – maybe – made life a little easier when first or second seat opens, but at the expense of making the “Standard” system unmanageable when third or fourth seat is the opening hand. Most pairs try to handle this situation with the Drury convention, to give responder a mechanism to identify under-strength openings. (Considered rationally, this is nothing more than a psychic control. Although the ACBL considers psychic controls to be anathema, they love Drury for some reason. Consistent logic is apparently not one of their strong suits.) This helps, but still leaves constructive bidding in the second system crippled, in my opinion. And I believe that many players fail to appreciate the difference in psychological approach necessary between the first and second systems.

So what’s my point? Well, in this little essay, I guess it’s just that I don’t really like 2/1 Game Forcing, but I think I have legitimate reasons for my gut reaction.

I finally got around to reading the August edition of the ACBL magazine, and so learned of the sudden death of John Armstrong early in July. I didn't know him personally, but I find myself affected anyway. I learned to play bridge as a teenager, and Armstrong was one of the strong young players at the time. We were almost the same age: we were both at Cambridge at the same time, although in different colleges. Too many people I knew from back then have departed already. I didn't want to hear of yet another.

Punting

Some more slams.

Game all, dlr N, matchpoint pairs

♠ -
♥ 7 6
♦ A 7 3
♣ A Q 10 9 8 5 4 3

  [ ]

♠ A 8 3
♥ A Q 10 9 3
♦ J 9 5
♣ K 2

1♣ Pass 1♥ 3♠ 
5♣ Pass 6♣ All Pass 

Surprisingly, we were the only pair to bid this excellent slam. I think most of the credit goes to my partner, for choosing to open at the one level. After that, his jump to 5♣ suggested that he not only had a very long suit, but also some values outside and/or some sort of heart fit. My concern wasn’t whether to raise to 6♣, but rather, might we be missing a grand. I decided that there were too many ways we might have a loser, and that the small slam was enough.

Apparently, most dealers elected to open 4♣ or 5♣. Now it still looks reasonable to me to punt 6♣, but it is much less clear-cut. You might have quick diamond losers; you haven’t heard the spade pre-empt, so if you envision a void in partner’s hand it seems most likely to be hearts; and so on. I can understand a pass opposite a 5♣ opening.

The next bidding sequence looks at first glance like a bit of a punt, but I think it’s actually better than that.

N-S vul, dlr S, matchpoint pairs

♠ K Q 9 6 4
♥ Q 2
♦ K Q 8 4
♣ A 6

  [ ]

♠ A
♥ A K J 5
♦ J 10 5 3
♣ K 10 7 4

1♦ Pass 1♠ Pass 
2♥ Pass 2♠ Pass 
3NT Pass 6NT All Pass

We play weak jump-shifts all the time, so there was no question about my first response. I was already thinking slam though, given any encouragement. The reverse into hearts was definitely that, but I still needed to sort out strain and level. I decided that 2♠ could not be passed – 2NT would have been the “slow down” bid – and that seemed like a good way to get another bid to clarify partner’s hand. I understood the jump to 3NT to indicate exactly the sort of hand he had – minimum for the reverse (about 16-17 hcp), no spade fit, clubs stopped. So 6NT then stands out as the matchpoint choice. Perhaps we’re missing 7♦, but few if any in the field would bid it. Perhaps 6♦ would be safer, but no-trump should be OK. With a combined count in the 32-34 range, it seems doubtful that 7NT is going to be a good bet. No, 6NT is easily the favorite, and yet this was a top shared with one other pair.

A couple of people chose 6♦, but the rest failed to reach slam-level. One that I spoke to didn’t reverse with the South hand. I know that a lot of Americans do require 17+hcp for a reverse, in which case the hand is borderline for the bid, at best. But if you don’t reverse, it then becomes very difficult for either partner to diagnose that the combined hands are at the borderline of slam territory. Agent 99 and I would probably have had a reversing auction, but we could also handle it through the extended-range 1NT rebid, if South chose to go that route:
1♦    Pass 1♠    Pass 
1NT(1)Pass 2♣(2) Pass 
2♥(3) Pass 3♦(4) Pass
3NT   Pass 4NT   Pass
6NT   All Pass
(1) 13-17
(2) Range inquiry
(3) 15-16, denies 3 spades
(4) Forcing
There is some danger that if North gets hypnotized by point-count, he might stop, knowing that the combined count is 31-32 and South isn’t overly enthused about the diamond suit. Certainly, jumping straight to 6NT seems too much. But a quantitative raise to 4NT doesn’t look totally unreasonable, and I think South should definitely accept the invitation if it’s made.

This one you can call a punt.

Love all, dlr S, matchpoint pairs

♠ K 8
♥ A Q 9 4 2
♦ 8
♣ 10 8 7 6 3

  [ ]

♠ A 7 4
♥ K J 7 6 5 3
♦ A 5
♣ A 4

1♥   Pass 4♥   Pass 
6♥   All Pass 

This was with an occasional partner, and we weren’t doing very well. I knew that for the game raise she would have four or five hearts and a little something outside, so the slam wasn’t a complete shot in the dark. If she had any sort of side suit, I would probably have some sort of play for enough tricks. The thing is, I can’t see any way to find out whether the North hand is suitable, “scientifically”. I mean, if it has KQ in one side suit and a singleton in another, slam may have play even if the ♥AQ are missing. There are lots of possibilities, once you start to consider.

Or maybe I’m an optimist. Nobody else bid it.

Trusting Partner

In the last post, I mentioned finding a particular partner inconsistent. A different partner has some set habits that I know I’ll never be able to change, but at least he’s consistent, and I should know how to handle him by now. (That’s another thing to like about Agent 99: at least she’s willing to work at breaking any bad habits she discovers.)

One good habit this guy has is a tendency to hold good suits for his bidding. It’s not always true, but it works often enough to make some decisions surprisingly viable. Look at this. Both sides vulnerable, I dealt and opened 2♣ on:

♠ A K Q J 10 2
♥ A 4
♦ K 7 6
♣ K 9

Perhaps this is a bit aggressive, but I hate to open a hand as good as this at the one level. Partner only needs a couple of queens or so to make game a fair bet. If I open 1♠ and partner says 1NT (face it, he’s either going to pass or say 1NT), what do I bid next? 4♠? Partner is pretty much certain to pass, and yes I’ll make the contract (probably), but also he might have enough for slam, and we won’t find out until we see the dummy. If I had an Acol 2♠ opening available, that would be perfect, but failing that, I’m going with 2♣. Of course partner says 2♦, and after 2♠ he says 3♦. Now what?

This really comes down to whether you can trust your partner. He doesn’t have much, but he has a diamond suit. If the suit has a chance to run, then you have a chance to take six spades, five+ diamonds, and the ace of hearts for a slam. If he might be bidding a garbage suit, you could easily talk yourself past a making game into a no-play slam.

I wheeled out Blackwood and bid 6♠. Partner had ♦AQxxxx, and there were no defensive surprises: opening leader did well to take his A♣ before the rats got at it. This hand was played eight times, six of them in 4♠ making seven, once in 3NT making seven. I think the opening bid gets some credit, but then there’s also my being able to trust his suit.

A questionable habit this guy has is a fondness for playing no-trump when we have a major suit fit. At matchpoints, this sometimes pays well, but other times it leads to a silly result. And he also tends to punt on big hands, not trusting us to construct a sensible auction. The combination can be terrifying: here’s a sample decision.

Nobody vulnerable, 3rd to speak, you hold:

♠ A K Q 6
♥ A J 9
♦ K 9 5
♣ Q 8 6

Partner opens 1♠, of all things, pass on your right.

You could blast straight to Blackwood, on the grounds that you want to be in 6♠ or 7♠ depending on whether partner has one ace or two. You could take a more genteel route to a similar destination starting with a Jacoby 2NT response. Both of these options being available, of course my partner chose to invent a 2♦ response. Now you hear 3♣, so the opener wasn’t psyching, and is probably at least 5-5 in the black suits. So where do you go now? After due consideration, the bid that emerged was 6NT.

This bid is so wrong. It kills any chance of reaching a grand (7♠ is cold). And spades is quite possibly much safer than no-trump. But, given the nature of the field, hardly anyone is going to be in a grand. And 6NT will then beat all the 6♠ bids – except of course it doesn’t, necessarily, because of the overtrick that isn’t there at no-trump. But what do you know – after two passes, we hear double. The opening leader had no idea what that asked for, if indeed it asked for anything specific. His final choice of a heart was less than successful, as the dummy I produced was:

♠ J 9 8 5 2
♥ Q 3
♦ -
♣ A K J 9 4 2

I’m not proud of that sequence from my side either. Of course I should open 1♣.
1♣ - 1♠; 3♠ - 4NT; 6♦ - 7♠;
Smooth as silk, but not in this partnership.

He has two other bad habits in competitive sequences. He always bids “just one more”, and he never pulls a penalty double. Either of those actions may be right or wrong, but you need some flexibility.

At favorable vulnerability, you deal and pass on:

♠ 10 4 2
♥ K 9 6 4 2
♦ 3 2
♣ 8 7 4

Pass  Pass  1♥      1♠
2♥     2♠     3♦     3♠ 
?
Of course you were worth 2♥ - you have to mention five-card support. But who would bid over 3♠?
4♥     Pass   Pass  4♠
Pass  Pass   Dble  Pass
?
Now your partner thinks you have something. You don’t, but since your partner has at most one spade and a diamond suit, we must be making at least eight tricks in hearts, so pulling the double to 5♥ can’t be a problem.
Pass Pass
Of course, and they wrap up ten tricks with little difficulty. Your partner’s crafty 3♦ bid had intimidated them into missing a game that everyone else bid - leaving them in 3♠ plus one would have been a top. Sacrificing in 5♥ doubled would have been above average. Pushing them into the game and leaving the double netted a big fat zero.

But I shouldn’t complain too much – I know he will do these things.

Punting Slams

One aspect of bidding that makes me look forward to games with Agent 99 is slam bidding. With too many of my other partners, to describe their bidding as “unsophisticated” or “rustic” is incredibly generous.

This one came out zero.

N-S vul, dlr S, matchpoint pairs

                       ♠ Q 10 8 4
                       ♥ K Q 10 8 3
                       ♦ J
♠ 9 3 2          ♣ 6 5 2   ♠ J 7
♥ 7 2                              ♥ 9 6 5 4
♦ K 10 7 5       [ ]          ♦ 9 4 3
♣ K Q 10 4                    ♣ J 9 7 3
                       ♠ A K 6 5
                       ♥ A J
                       ♦ A Q 8 6 2
                       ♣ A 8

2♣     2♦
2NT   6NT
Pass

Playing with agent 99, I could rebid 3♠ to show both spades and diamonds. Failing that, I thought the 2NT rebid would at least give him the chance to use Stayman or transfers. No such luck – he wasn’t sure that “I would pick up on that”. I could have slapped him.

Of course, 6♠ is cold while 6NT has no play. I nearly made it anyway. After ducking the club lead and winning the second round, I cashed the major suit winners before leading the ♦J for a finesse. I pondered before playing the ♦Q, because I was suspicious of West. I should have followed my instincts and risen with the ♦A – she had blanked the ♦K to get me down two, a foolish risk since by then she knew I was in the wrong contract.

A better line may be to win the first trick and play it as a strip-squeeze. West should unblock the ♣Q, and East should rise with the ♣J at trick 11. But maybe one of them would get it wrong.

Later in the evening, there was another one.

Game all, dlr N, matchpoint pairs

♠ A K Q 9
♥ K Q
♦ J 5 3
♣ A J 10 7

  [ ]

♠ 8
♥ A J 10 6 3
♦ K Q 2
♣ Q 6 5 2

1♣     Pass 1♥     Pass 
1♠(!) Pass 3NT  Pass 
6NT  All Pass

4♦ led.

I was slightly baffled how a non-forcing 1♠ rebid could come up with a raise to slam, but this particular partner has never been especially consistent. Of course, it never occurred to him that I might pass 1♠, in which case we would quite possibly miss a game. It also didn’t occur to him to open 2NT, bearing in mind that we were supposedly playing the bid as 20-21. And in fact, as he laid the dummy down, he was puzzled why the others at the table were shaking their heads. But at least the final contract was reasonable this time.

The opening diamond lead went to the ace on my right, and was followed by a heart switch, won on the table. On dummy’s other heart winner, West discarded a diamond. OK, I have 11 winners, and it looks like the contract depends on the club finesse, but there’s some distribution about. It has to be right to cash the top spades now. After all, it may be a small chance that the ♠J10 will fall in three rounds, but there is no point in ignoring it. And if there are any squeeze possibilities, I need to get the high spades out of the way. But no luck – both opps follow small three times. Now across to a diamond – both follow – and finish the hearts. West ditches two clubs and a diamond, and so does dummy. Finally, the ♦Q, and West discards the ♣8 as East follows suit with the ♦9 and dummy finally ditches the ♠9. I’m down to ♣AJ on the table and ♣Q6 in hand. I lead the ♣6, and the ♣9 appears. Do I finesse?

I’m still not sure what’s the right reasoning here. If the clubs were 5-0, East would have had five spades headed by the J10. Wouldn’t a switch to the ♠J have looked more productive than a switch to a small heart? Or was he thinking that his only chance was that West had the ♥A? Surely, if he was looking for two quick tricks, a diamond return would have made more sense, on the grounds that we were more likely to be missing the ♦AK rather than two aces. Or, if the clubs were 4-1, the spades would have been 4-4-4-1 also, which is pleasantly symmetrical. In that case, the singleton ♣K is sitting offside, and I need to rise with the ♣A. Isn’t 4-1 more likely than 5-0?

I’m inclined to think that it just comes down to “table presence”. I felt that West was looking at a spade, so this time I went up with the ace. Nobody else did.

                      ♠ A K Q 9
                      ♥ K Q
                      ♦ J 5 3
♠ J 5 4 2      ♣ A J 10 7   ♠ 10 7 6 3
♥ 2                                     ♥ 9 8 7 5 4
♦ 10 8 7 4      [ ]               ♦ A 9 6
♣ 9 8 4 3                           ♣ K
                      ♠ 8
                      ♥ A J 10 6 3
                      ♦ K Q 2
                      ♣ Q 6 5 2

This particular partner and I broke up after this evening’s play. I made a cruel joke at his expense, he took offence, we ended up not speaking to each other, and broke up over the phone the next day. It was mostly my fault, I expect. But on the other hand, it was reasonable for us to stop playing together, regardless of the particular incident that evening. The partnership had worked, to some extent, in the past. But lately I found that I just couldn’t get along with him. His bidding is primitive and just too inconsistent for me – I never know what he has. And his play doesn’t make up for it. It is a decent average, compared to the other people in the club, but not more than that, although I suspect he thinks he is much better than average. But when we reached a low-percentage contract, I noticed I might sometimes be able to salvage a score on the play of the cards. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that he has managed that.