A Simple Game?

A partner of mine, a pretty fine player, used to say, "Bridge is such a goddamn simple game." Now, it's a comment that needs a couple of asterisks. It can hardly look simple to a rank neophyte who can only feel near overwhelmed by the complexities of good bidding practices and good play. And at the other extreme, I think it would be unjustly condescending to suggest that the experts are, after all, only excelling at a simple game. I think the experts (the real ones, not the self-styled experts on OKbridge) deserve all the accolades they get for mastering a highly complex game and I don't want to suggest otherwise.

Nevertheless, I felt I knew what my friend meant, and I didn't argue with him. It's a simple game, played at the local level. Ninety-five percent of the mistakes being made are a misapplication or scorning of rather simple concepts and principles. One might argue, "You're saying that if we gloss over the complexities of bridge, then it's a simple game. Real bright, fella." Okay. I grant the justice of that. But I hold that that's what the general run of players do anyway.

I would argue that 98% of us -- and I suppose I should put this in the first person -- are comfortable with looking into, mastering if possible, just so much complexity. Whether we gloss over the deep complexities because we lack the brains, the temperament, the time or all of the above to devote ourselves to mastering them, I leave to the reader to decide. I'm only saying this is the bridge played by all but a small handful of players. And given that pervasive cast of mind, the bridge that is played at your local club and at sectionals and regionals and on OKBridge is a fairly simple game dependent on mastering fairly simple principles.

Those who pay heed and observe these simple principles will tend to rise -- not the top of the bridge world and not to the top of the scoresheet every time you play, but rise to the top a little more often than do the other guys, and we're happy with that. So I'm not trying to sell bridge as a simple game, obviously, but rather as a game where mastering simple principles should go a long way toward giving you a pretty formidable game among your peers. This of course is not directed to any who want to become professionals.

Following are a couple of hands that I think epitomize -- no, I don't say prove -- the simple nature of bridge hands and how people throw away points by not applying the simplest of principles.

A J 7 5

Q 8 6

Q 9

K 10 9 5

10 6

K J 4

A K J 5

A Q J 6

Well, I did this largely from memory. Tournaments don't last as long on OKbridge as they used to with once-a-week tourneys. But I'm sure of the spade suit (excepting the spots) and of the point count and distribution in each hand. I'm also sure of a six club bid that made, which I'll get to in a minute.

Now Goren gave us the figure 33 for a little slam. He didn't say you'll always make with 33, for obviously that allows room for a defender to hold A K in a suit, nor did he say you'll never make with fewer than 33 even on balanced hands, since there are bound to be some where everything breaks right for 12 tricks on fewer points. What he said was that this was a good benchmark figure for going to little slam.

Do players today figure they know more than Goren did? Or maybe they think that makes the game too cut-and-dried? To the latter school, I would offer a few refutations. First, cut-and-dried or not, what's so bright and sophisticated about being in the wrong contract, anyway? And secondly, if some hands are cut-and-dried, well, why not bid and play them quickly and get on to the next hand? (More on that in a minute.) Where's the percentage in taking 10 or 12 minutes to play a 3- or 4-minute hand? There will be plenty of challenges to your acumen even if you trust Goren, and the more hands you play, the more there will be, no?

So on the above hand, I opened a club, playing 15-17 no trumps, my partner bid a spade, I rebid 2 no trump and my partner bid 6 no. When dummy came down on a spade lead, I could see at a glance that I couldn't make it. Indeed, I would have led a heart to the ace myself, if RHO hadn't cashed it immediately.

I'm promising 18 or 19 hcp's. So with 13 hcp's in his hand, we don't have 33. Yes, when there are long suits and when in trump contracts there are short suits, it's not so easy to determine slam potential on 33 points. But neither was operative here, obviously. It wasn't a trump contract. North didn't have a five-card or longer suit.

Incidentally, I want to say one thing about Mr. Goren. There have been "advances" in bidding since his heyday. The requirements for no trump bidding have drifted downward, as 5-card majors and weak two's were introduced. But one thing you're not going to change in the next 1000 years is what the cards will do for you. Aces will still capture kings, as nines will beat eights, and if that's not true a thousand years hence, then you're not talking about the same game. So I would regard it as a self-defeating pseudo-sophistication to belittle anything Goren told us about the trick potential of the cards.

I went to the tourney record on the above hand and found company. One declarer got a bid of four no over his two no, and I would dearly have loved that, since it would have been passed quickly. But it wasn't to be. What was most amazing, however, was the delcarer who made six clubs! How did he do that? He has a spade loser and he has to lose to the ace of hearts, and if that's not enough, the defender with the ace of hearts passed up two chances to cash it!

Obviously declarer simply can't make 12 tricks without at least one heart winner, and so led the suit to his king after ducking the opening lead of a spade, giving East a second chance to take his ace. But that's not enough yet, is it? Declarer can now sluff two hearts from dummy on the long diamonds, but can ruff only one after trump are drawn. So here is the only way I can see that 12 tricks did germinate: Declarer took two rounds of trump, then four rounds of diamonds, sluffing two hearts (remember, declarer led the suit once), ruffed a heart, then returned to his hand with the third round of trump and cashed his last club. East was squeezed. Declarer then has the jack of hearts and 10 of spades opposite the A J of spades. And East? Well, if he keeps his ace of hearts, he no longer has two spades.

These are simple concepts. No, not the squeeze. Cashing the setting trick in a slam when you get a chance. That's a simple concept. Eschewing a 31-hcp, balanced-suit slam. That's a simple. You don't have to be a whiz to recognize and apply them, and you don't show any great sophistication in scorning them, though certainly, we all know, sometimes you're going to get a top board in slam nobody else is in.

Here is one I saw the other day:

Q 7 5

? ? ? ? ? ?

A J 6 4 2

This was the only long suit in a slam some were playing in spades, some in no trump. Suffice it to say that if you don't bring this suit home, you don't make a grand slam. Any 4-1 split dooms you. Any king after the ace would do it also. And any ability to cover the queen would do it. Leaving only a king doubleton before the ace that does it for you, and yes, it was there, and yes, one person was in grand slam, making. So it happens. It happens. But for these chance lucky breaks, you give up an awful lot of lovely small slams when you bid the grand on such a slim chance and that's a lot of points to throw away.

Here is another rather simple hand, all things considered.

	A 10 8 5
	A 7
	Q J
	Q 10 8 7 6



	K Q 6
	K 10 4 2
	A K 8 7 5
	A

This hand also has gone to bridge heaven, but it was one of my favorite hands and so I can speak a lot about the results. At my table, the bidding went a club by my partner, diamond, spade, six no. Playing time about 5 minutes. Others were taking up to six rounds of bidding and up to 12 or 14 minutes for the hand. It's a simple concept. Blackwood and Gerber won't help you here, and indeed, evidently led astray those who went to 7 no on the basis of all four aces.

And there's one other pair who would have done well to bear in mind the probability of 33 pts bringing in slam. That was the pair who got doubled in 5 no and played it out for an overtrick and a bad board. Should that person have gone to six? Heavens no! Redouble! Now that's going to get you a top board. Incidentally, you don't need to go through the score for redouble with overtrick, vs. the score for little slam. You only need tot up the difference, which is 3 times 160, plus 170, plus 100: 270 plus 480 comes to 750, vs. a non-vul slam bonus of 500. Further, you're one trick safer than the people in slam, so it's almost a can't lose proposition.

(Three times 160 refers to the trick score for 5 no. You make quadruple those other guys, which is three times more. 170 refers to the 200 point overtrick minus 30 those other guys get. And nowadays, you get 100 for making a redoubled contract. If you can multiply 3 times 160, you hardly need to continue to know the redouble brings more than the little slam.) (Redoubles can be ill-advised if the opponents have shown a marvelous fit of their own. Here there was no such danger.)

I might mention that two other people had an opportunity for a top board, one in 7 spades, one in 7 diamonds. Each involved getting a ruff in the short hand, but the declarer in each superior contract wasn't up to that and went down. Seven no had an outside chance of a heart-club squeeze. Hearts had to be 5-2, which they were, and the person with 5 has to have the king of clubs, which he didn't. So all those in 7 no went down. One person did pick up 13 tricks in diamonds. Unfortunately, his contract was 2 diamonds. Evidently one partner thought they were playing weak jump shifts and the other didn't!

These are very simple concepts. Very simple. And such concepts can carry you a long way vis-à-vis the people who scorn them.

	A J 7 5
	Q 8 6
	Q 9
	K 10 9 5



	10 6
	K J 4
	A K J 5
	A Q J 6