Saturday, September 16, 2006 12:34 AM
 
Counting Out Hands

 

PITBULLS:

 

          All Bridge experts have the ability to translate bidding , signals , showing out of suits etc into hand patterns and plan their play or defense on that basis. This skill is assumed by other Bridge experts as an essential but standard skill. Tom Gandolfo plays hands “double dummy”. This means that he has a mental picture of the two defenders hand via hand patterns and plays accordingly. This is like looking at the hand records while you are playing hence the term “double dummy” as you are allowed to see the dummy in Bridge.

 

          Some experts are lazy. They only use patterns as declarer and not as defender . This makes no sense at all. In order to declare double dummy , you have two unknown hands to consider so it is twice as hard as defending. On defense , you only have to use patterns to construct one unknown hand . In addition , if you have partners hand counted , the 4th hand declarers hand becomes crystal clear.

 

          Here are two hands from the Calgary Calcutta which shows this skill. Nick Gartaganis was playing 3 and in the end position he was down to ♣J10x of clubs and led a small club from the board . I played small from my ♣9xx and Nick played small and Kiz won her now stiff queen. This allowed Nick to make 3. After they left,  I said to Kiz “hell of a play by Nick” to make the contract. Easy said Kiz “ I lead a small heart showing 3 , I showed up with 5 spades and 3 diamonds”. When I won my club Ace and gave you a spade ruff,  I signaled a club for you to return so Nick knew I was 5-3-3-2 with the queen. Note how quickly Kiz analyzed Nicks play thinking the same way he was thinking.

 

          I was defending 1X with Kiz where applying patterns on defense is a must. 1♣ by Kiz everybody vul and Gerry McCully overcalled 1 which was passed around to Kiz. She put the red card on the table and everybody passed. I led the heart queen and the Board came down with 9x K10xx KJxx ♣xxx  . Gerry covered with the King and Kiz won her Ace. Kiz held originally ♠x Axx Axx ♣KQJxx so when she won her heart she switched to clubs. Gerry won his Ace and led the diamond queen which I followed with the deuce. Kiz applied a pattern since I showed 4 and said to herself 4-4-3-2 so declarer has two diamonds and she ducked. Gerry know switched horses in mid stream and led a spade to the 9. I won the 10 , cashed my heart jack and returned the diamond 10 and Gerry carefully played low as a deceptive play . Kiz knows he only has 2 diamonds and the board is dead and if she ducks like Gerry obviously wanted her to do , I would be end played. Accordingly Kiz wins her diamond Ace and cashed her club king and I discard my last heart . Kiz cashed her other club  and returns a heart which I ruff. I am now down to AQJ of spades and am legitimately end played but Jerry only got the club Ace , one diamond and one spade for +1100 . Imagine needing an end play for –1100 with a vulnerable overcall. I held AQJ10x QJx 1098x ♣. 

 

          The point to the above hand is you “think in patterns” on defense all the time. Patterns prevent you from falling into deception by declarer like not covering the diamond. If Kiz fell for Gerry’s play , he escapes for –500 and wins 5 IMPS instead of losing 12 . A 17 IMP swing re-enforces you to always think in patterns !