The Huddle

by Phillip Martin, Scarsdale, NY

Howard Chandross and I once bid a slam on a guess for the queen of trump—an unusually good contact for us. Howard went down in five seconds flat. When I asked him why he had played so fast, he answered, “It was just a guess. Thinking about it wasn’t going to help.”

I had to admire Howard’s attitude. Somehow, I never seem to reach the point in a deal where I think there is nothing to be gained by further reflection. I often wish I could, a wish shared by my partners, teammates, opponents, and a number of directors.

Take, for example, my own queen “guess” on the last deal of a regional Swiss teams. I’m not sure how long the deal took, but I’m pretty sure it set a personal record. It would make a better story if we were playing for the event. But, in fact, we knew it was mathematically impossible for either team to win.

My partner was Karen McCallum. Our opponents were competent players, but not world-class. They were both avid readers of old Bridge Worlds.

West led the three of diamonds. I played the ten from dummy, which held. One possible line of play would be to claim on the marked diamond finesse through East, since no one would lead from a queen on this auction. But as a matter of form, I decided to find out what I could first. I cashed four rounds of clubs. West pitched a heart on the third round; we both pitched hearts on the fourth. I then played a heart from the dummy and ducked when East played the ten. East exited with a low heart to my ace, West following with the queen. I cashed the high spades, then the king of hearts, on which West pitched a spade. Apparently West had begun with,

? x x x Q x x x x x x x x

But when I played ace and a diamond, East unexpectedly followed low. That meant West had begun with

Q J x x x Q x x x x x x x

The strange thing about that wasn’t so much that West had led low from a doubleton. Deceptive leads against slams are not uncommon. It was that West had pitched a heart on the third round of clubs. If he knew I didn’t have four hearts, that would be a fine play, making it harder for me to count his hand. But, from his point of view, I might have

K x A x x x K J x A Q x x

in which case a heart pitch would give me the contract.

It seemed impossible that West would have led a diamond from queen third when he had a perfectly safe club lead. But it seemed just as impossible that he would have pitched a heart when he was 5=4=2=2. I had two virtually 100% inferences pointing in opposite directions. So, no matter which line I chose, I was going to look like a complete idiot if I was wrong.

I could hear the argument already. “But it was so obvious. How could he (fill in the blank)?”

“I’m aware of that,” I would answer, “but, on the other hand, how could he (fill in the blank)? My play was equally obvious.”

At this point, my teammate would roll his eyes and complain about how I always make simple hands complicated. To make sure you don’t fall into this trap yourself, I invite you to make your choice before reading further. To be fair, write it down, so you can’t change your mind.

As a general rule, the less information one has, the easier it is to make a mistake. In other words, a bad opening lead in the blind, ceteris paribus, is more likely than a bad discard with dummy in full view.

But in this case, it’s not clear just how paribus the ceteris are. A lead from queen third was unthinkable, an error of gross ignorance; a heart discard was merely a mistake, an error of analysis. West, in my opinion, was less apt to make an error of ignorance than one of analysis. Further, as a Bridge World reader, he had probably encountered one of the “idle fifth” articles*, making it more likely that the tricky heart discard would occur to him.

Against that, a bad lead, however unthinkable, was a single unlikely event. The alternative scenario required a parlay: a tricky lead (low from a doubleton), a tricky discard, an oversight (in not recognizing that the tricky discard was unsafe), and a good play by East (in not covering the diamond ten). Each of these things individually was more likely than the bad lead. But were they still more likely when taken in combination?

By this time, Karen and East had left the table and were conversing off to the side. Soon, West joined them. Before long, the other table joined them as well and they began comparing results. They scored the match two ways, depending on the card I eventually chose to play.

After a while, all the other tables were finished and all the other results were in. I was sitting alone at our table with my head in my hands, considering the ramifications of various ways West might have missorted his cards. Since it was the last deal of the tournament, the directors were uncharacteristically tolerant. Karen explained the situation to them, and they scored the event two ways, depending on the two possible results of our match.

The caddy came by and removed the boards. Later on, he returned and removed the guide cards. Soon, the custodians came and began folding up the tables and chairs. They kindly left my chair. I sat alone in the middle of an empty gymnasium with seven players and three directors waiting on the sidelines. Everyone else had gone home.

Finally, I got up and strolled over. “King,” I said.

Congratulations,” sneered a director. “Making six. You came in third.”

“I knew you’d figure it out sooner or later,” Karen said. “After all, how could he pitch a heart with five spades?”

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*“That Idle Fifth,” by Jean Besse, August, 1966, or “‘That Idle Fifth’ Revisited,” by Ed Manfield, February, 1980.

Reprinted by permission of The Bridge World.

© 2003 by Bridge World Magazine Inc.