Thursday, February 09, 2006 1:01 AM

Hand Evaluation – Signals ( Radio Frequencies )

PITBULLS:

Deductive & inductive reasoning is the thinking part of Bridge. This is where you play “detective” in the game of Bridge. You draw inferences from how a good declarer is playing a hand or partner’s behavior & signaling during the auction & play. In the game of Bridge sometimes you must be like a tuning capacitor. What is that exactly ? In a radio or TV that is the component that tunes into the frequency of the radio wave you want to hear or see. In the game of Bridge , there are many inferences floating around but you must “tune into them” . Allow partner to help you with signaling but you can tune into other inferences also on your own.

Players who play in a steady diet of weak fields, have a hard time with this one. You draw inferences from how declarer is playing a hand which in a weak field is dangerous because they do not know what they are doing themselves. A declarer was in 3NT after opening 1♦ , ♠xx ♥xx ♦J10x ♣AKxxxx . We lead a major won by declarer who immediately cashes the ♣Q and leads another club cashing the ♣K . Finding out the bad news ( ♣’s 4-1 ) , she returns to her hand with a heart & leads a small diamond. You have doubleton ♦Q so you win so what is the last card you return & why ? . Put yourself as declarer & ask yourself how you would play the diamond suit if you had ♦AK. You would lead the ♦J & finesse correct ? So declarer does not have the ♦AK . My partner won the ♦Q and promptly returned a diamond for an 18 IMP swing . My ♦K was a goner but worse still an extra entry to cash the stranded club Ace. +200 to minus -600 in one ill thought out play when our partners were +130 in a club contract.

Playing with a tormentee tonight the auction went 3♦-4♦-X-4♥

P-P-5♦-X

all pass . You lead the heart Ace , the board is ♠Qx ♥K9 ♦Q1098x ♣AJ10x . This is the time for the Gartaganis signaling method as heart length is known from the bidding.. The King of hearts dictates we switch to middle encourages with high and lo hearts suit preferences. Partner plays the heart 6 & declarer the jack & you have ♠KJ10xxx ♥AQ87xx ♦void ♣Q . Now what ?

We start off our defense the usual way with patterns. Whenever they pre-empt or make a bid that announces distribution , this translation to patterns always must be your first step. This is the fact finding part of our later deductive reasoning process. OK they have announced a 7 card diamond suit , there are 5 on the board so you have 12 diamonds accounted for as partner only has one. Partner’s heart 6 is a bit fuzzy but he did not play the deuce that is missing or the 5 that is missing. Therefore, he can not like clubs.

Knowing that partner has a stiff diamond this could mean that the pre-empter has ♦AKJxxxx of diamonds. Counting HCP’s is the 2^nd fact finding defensive step in Bridge after patterns . The pre-empter cannot hold the spade Ace also as she does not have a pre-empt with that card. Furthermore , partner has nothing on which to double 5♦ ( bidding the 3^rd defensive inference) . If partner did not hold the spade Ace , he would make sure that you switch to a club by playing the lowest heart. The heart 6 turned out to be his highest heart from 652.

However . signaling is not the end all & be all . You take the signal along with all the other clues that you can tune into. Taking the bidding into consideration is another defensive step for fact finding. Partner doubled the final contract , so she must hold some values. The opponents pre-empted so they have given you via the bidding a defined framework from which you can draw inferences. All indications broadcast that partner has the spade Ace , so you switch to a spade. You get rewarded as you cash the spade Ace & King & partners stiff diamond happens to be the Ace so you are plus +300 for a good result. -550 was not a good result when the Tormentee switched to a club L. ( I had the heart deuce & did not play it )