Pet Hates!

[OliverC]

I have two pet hates when it comes to common (sharp) practice on BBO. The first is people who repeatedly click on a bid for an explanation (5 or 6 times), even when a full explanation has already been given, to convey to Partner that you have that suit or want that suit led. The other one is long pregnant pauses over artificial bids to convey much the same thing.

I never tend to take people to task about it, but it's cheating, pure and simple. The second of these came up on this hand, but Opps both lacked the wit to take advantage of it:

You are North, NS Game, holding:

North
K83
J82
KJ10
KQ102

You open 1NT, Partner bids 2 and West goes into the tank for about 3 minutes before eventually passing. You bid 2 and that is passed out. East leads (what a surprise!) the King of Hearts, and Partner puts the following Dummy down

North (Dummy)
QJ976
63
2
J7643

King led.

North
K83
J82
KJ10
KQ102

Actually I've no place to criticise East here, because the Ace or King of Hearts is a perfectly normal and obvious lead. East took the AK of Hearts and played a small Heart at trick 3. What's our plan?

• Tricks: We have oodles of tricks in the Black suits
• Losers:There are 5 obvious  and fairly inescapable losers: 2 Hearts and the other 3 Aces.
• Dangers: The main danger to this contract is clearly a Club ruff or maybe even 2 Club ruffs. A 4-1 trump split mnay also be a little inconvenient.
• Plan:Clearly we want to draw trumps as quickly as possible so that we can then enjoy the Clubs.

I have to say Eszter played this hand very well. At trick 3, instead of ruffing, she discarded Dummy's Jack of Diamonds. This is an expert play for three reasons: Firstly she has to lose the Diamond anyway and this play is a sort of loser-on-loser, because she can ruff any subsequently Heart leads in her hand. Secondly, it's now much more difficult for Opps to attack the Diamonds, knowing that Dummy will be in a position to ruff. Lastly, it cuts the communication between the two defending hands, so that it's much more difficult for Opps to get 2 Club ruffs.

The downside of this is that it makes a Club switch much more likely. In fact, West had a singleton Club (and East Axx), but Eszter's play also somehow persuaded West that it would now be a good idea to force Dummy, and that the Diamonds were wide open, so At trick 4 West led the Ace of Diamonds. Eszter ruffed in Dummy and led the Queen of Spades, which held, and now a small Spade to her King, which also held, West, who had started with A52, Q10976, AQ94, was now stranded with their Ace of Spades, but no means to cash it. Eszter played on Clubs. East took their Ace immediately, and switched to a Diamond, but Eszter could simply play Minor suit winners and let West take their Ace of trumps when they liked.

2 making was an outright top worth 7 IMPs, because 4 is ice cold for EW. Even 2 going 1 off would have been worth 2½ IMPs, as a result. 2 -2 would have been pretty much the par score, even though nobody actually had that result.

The key play here, potentially, was discarding the 2 from Dummy on the 3rd Heart. In practice, Eat only entry outside Hearts was the Ace of Clubs, so once they had cashed the AK , there was never any chance for the defence to gain 2 Club ruffs. Cutting the communication between the defending hands is quite often a key play, perhaps by holding up a winner, or maybe even holding up a losing Kxx caught between QJ10x and Axx. If East had held the Ax, nothing can prevent two Club ruffs if Opps are alert to it, but Eszter's play gave herself maximum chance of escaping with -1 if a Club ruff was available to EW, at no cost to her if the Clubs were 2-2.

[brian_m]

Actually I've no place to criticise East here, because the Ace or King of Hearts is a perfectly normal and obvious lead.

Unless they're a pickup pair, or West is known to have a crappy internet connection, I would disagree. If I know my partner has a habit of doing this, and I know it's not a connection problem (living where I do, I knew all about those from when I only had a satellite ISP available!) then I don't care if I have the AKQJ, I am NOT leading one. It's kill or cure time - either partner learns not to do this, or (s)he goes on my twit list.

Of course, if East doesn't have the wits to realise what's going on, that's an entirely different matter. 

[OliverC]

The problem is, of course, that the concept of bridge ethics is one that is almost wholly alien to the online generation of Bridge players who have either never played face-to-face competitive bridge or only rarely play it face-to-face.


This wasn't a case of a slow connection. Most of his other bids were quick enough. What he ought to do, of course, is to double 2 (which legitimately shows Hearts and values when my 2 bid bears no relation to Hearts), and now EW probably reach their game. Maybe East was, like you, too ethically minded to take advantage of the long hesitation, but felt that his opening lead was "automatic" enough, despite it.

[kiwi_2o1]

I've never noticed that. Why would he think for that time when he doesn't even hold them and doesn't want the heart lead? More often I find they are mystified by artificial bids, dally too long or and quickly leave the table.

[kiwi_2o1]

Its a touchy matter and sometimes we err without any intent. I remember playing against an Oamaru pair sometime ago and the outcome of the contract was pretty clear to everyone at the table but me. The easy clue if I remember correctly was that West held one of the key cards as he bid and I somehow missed it. Someone said 'just claim' but I didn't realise the win was there. Instead I played for a simple squeeze and started isolating a menace instead of taking the alternative immediate finesse. To my embarrassment it was commented how I was 'correctly' playing the hand so I stopped my squeeze preparation as the comment gave that key card away. Then someone asked why I didn't continue with the squeeze. Well there was no pleasure in that anymore. I just claimed and didn't reply to that question.

My pet hate is where people just leave a table without a thanks, reason or bye. I just blacklist them and now my list is long. But I discovered recently that the listing doesn't work the way I expected. It doesn't stop them sitting at a table again, even if you 'own' it, but only the ability to chat/email with you. Its even more rude to try and now boot them off so I put up with returners now.

My second hate is where opponents will not allow one to ask a new, perhaps one-off partner, what convention they play (say 3041, 4130) or the meaning of an ambiguous bid e.g. 1H 4C. In one case I was left to play against a senior pair in a  (friendly?) team match and guess my way through while they had an encyclopediac range of conventions, treatments and understandings to assist them. At the time it gave me a fair amount of pleasure to trash them but no satisfaction on reflection now.

[OliverC]

My second hate is where opponents will not allow one to ask a new, perhaps one-off partner, what convention they play (say 3041, 4130) or the meaning of an ambiguous bid e.g. 1H 4C.

LOL. How are they going to stop you from asking?


I have a Chat Assistant button that specifically tells Opps it's fine for them to ask if there's something about whatever system they're playing that they're not sure about.


My other pet hate is people who needlessly chivvy Opps to play faster (but say nothing when Partner is thinking about a bid or play, and see nothing wrong when they themselves need time to think about a bid or play. I send them a message to that effect the first time and tend to boot them if they do it again.

[kiwi_2o1]

I agree about the speed issue. I ask them if they expect to play without any thought at all.

For the system query, I asked the opponents if I could ask my partner, still being fairly new to bbo methods and knowing one could never do it at f2f. One of them declined! The other was understanding. Is it OK in a game to ask partner what his bid means or what agreement we would have (say action over a weak NT)?

[brian_m]

I think the official BBO view is quite clear, Ash, that you aren't allowed to ask without the OK from both opponents to do so. As you know from when you've played against me, I am 100% in Oliver's camp on this one, any time I am playing against pickup opponents (even if playing very basic Acol with Kerry!) I tell opponents to discuss their system whenever needed, and if I'm playing OCP then I don't care if they're a regular partnership. Georgi and I play my version of the 3rd and 4th hand 1 opener, and it is flat-out unreasonable to expect opponents to have discussed a defence to a 1NT opener that shows 11-15 HCP and 5 /4M or 6+ .

There are plenty of tables on BBO. If opponents refuse to let you ask something basic which you would normally have discussed, then play the hand out, put one or both opponents in your twit list, and find another table - or take your partner with you and open one yourself. I suspect that my twit list rivals yours for the number of entries, and in my case, it's strictly a one-way trip. I never open a table without having permission required to play, and if someone on my twit list asks to sit, I simply don't accept them.