|
WEST
3  ---
Pass Pass |
NORTH --
Pass 6NT Pass |
EAST
---
Pass Pass |
SOUTH
3NT Pass |
|||||||||||
vol. 8, nr. 2,
April/May 1997
| The GIB Zone (2) 'The Bet is Off' |
Zia
Mahmood
|
WEST
3 ---
Pass Pass |
NORTH --
Pass 6NT Pass |
EAST
---
Pass Pass |
SOUTH
3NT Pass |
|||||||||||
10. Looks pretty hopeless, or do you disagree?
|
WEST ---
- - 2 
3NT Pass |
NORTH---
-1 
Pass Pass Pass |
EAST ---
1NT 2
4
Pass |
SOUTH
Pass Pass Pass |
|||||||||||
5,
North plays the jack. You decide to duck. North switches to the 10.
How do you proceed?
|
WEST ---
2 -
Pass |
NORTH
---
Pass Pass |
EAST ---
4 
Pass |
SOUTH
6 |
|||||||||||
was a
weak two. West tracks the
K. You ruff and A
fells the outstanding trumps. Now what?
|
|||||||||||||||
-preempt
by West, and the lead is the 10.
Declarer thinks for about thirty seconds, plays a couple of rounds of clubs,
and next a spade to dummy. This is followed by the J.
The east seat is occupied by a player who has never been caught making
a defensive error. You can almost hear him count: "If I take the A
and continue diamonds, declarer will cash his clubs and spades, leaving:
|
|||||||||||||||
K,
and rattled off his black-suit winners. This led to a rare position:
|
|||||||||||||||
10
from dummy presented the defenders with an insoluble problem. Should East
rise with the ace, he then crashes his partner's queen, while promoting 9
for the twelfth trick. East ducked, West was thrown in and had to play
a heart into South's tenace: six NT in the bag. The end position is known
in the literature as the winkle. If you should recognise the hand, or the
infallibility of the defenders, you're right. The south player played the
deal against Bridge Master, Fred Gitelman's program with pre-dealt hands
in which the opponents make no errors, and where you always have to rely
on proper technique as declarer.
In Zia's book, Bridge, My Way, which appeared a few years ago, he offered to take a one-million-pound bet that no computer would be able to beat him at the bridge table. The stunt seemed to work in that it produced a lot of publicity for his book. That is, until last month, when word reached him that bridge program GIB, brainchild of American professor Ginsberg, proved capable of incredible feats of declarer play. Indeed, the above winkle was carried out by a computer equipped with GIB….
Hold the press!
|
WEST ---
- - 2
3NT Pass |
NORTH---
-1
Pass Pass Pass |
EAST ---
1NT 2
4
Pass |
SOUTH
Pass Pass Pass |
|||||||||||
without assistance from the opponents. South led 5,
taken by North's Jack, and the 10
was returned. Kootstra rightly concluded that this had to be either a singleton
or a doubleton. Therefore, South had Q,
which made it clear that North had to posses
K for his opening bid. Thus, there was a potential loser in each of the
suits. Kootstra took the A
, played a heart to the ace, and exited in hearts. North took his king
and switched to spades, taken by the leader's ace. The last trump was pulled,
and it was clear that three club tricks were required. Tjeerd Kootstra
clearly recognised that his combined club holding lent itself to an 'intrafinesse'.
He played a small club from the east hand, and covered South's 8 with the
9. North won his 
10,
and played another spade, ruffed by West. Now, K
dropped South's J,
and with Q
3 under dummy's A
6, Kootstra picked up the rest of the suit by finessing against Q,
and made his contract.
Very well played, and appropriately rewarded by a favourable club
position. I used this hand in my Saturday newspaper column of the General
Commercial Daily, and the day after submitting the piece, I gave GIB
this problem to solve. I was curious if GIB could match Kootstra's good
line of play. To a certain extent GIB duplicated Kootstra's line: spade
ducked, diamond won, trump ace, other trump, spade ace taken. But then…
GIB ruffs the 10
and pulls the last trump with
J. He next plays a small club, sees South follow suit with the eight, and
plays the king. A booboo, I'm thinking to myself. GIB now continues
with 9, small,
small, to the Jack, and South is endplayed! He only has diamonds left and
is forced to play into the tenace. Then it starts to dawn on me. This line
also works if South has a third club, as the clubs are then breaking three-three
and the fourth round will provide a pitch for the losing diamond. Stop
the press!
It was too late already - the column had been printed. What a mistake.
Just imagine the layout had been slightly different:
|
|||||||||||||||
Hand of the year?
Geir Helegemo is one of the more competent bridge players around - that's
a well-known fact. At the latest American Nationals he was partnered by
The Bridge World's publisher Edgar Kaplan, and he took advantage of
the occasion to shine in his customary fashion:
|
WEST
----
- 2 -
Pass |
NORTH --
Kaplan Pass Pass |
EAST ---
- 4
Pass |
SOUTH
Helgemo 6 |
|||||||||||
5.
Helgemo ducked, allowing dummy's 9
to win the trick. The losing club was subsequently discarded on the fourth
spade.
Had East played back a club rather than a spade, then Helgemo
would have taken the ace, crossed to dummy in trumps, and returned the
9, pinning the eight, and picking up the rest of the suit by a repeated
finesse. Nicely played by the Norwegian Kootstra: an intrafinesse followed
by a pinning finesse and a regular one. This hand was immediately nominated
for the Hand of the Year Award. Incidentally, West could have made Helgemo's
life a lot tougher by playing 8
in the first round, suggesting a holding of honour-eight doubleton.
I submit the hand to GIB, telling him that West owns five or six hearts and less than an opening bid. GIB ruffs the heart lead, pulls trumps, and ponders the situation for well over a minute. Lo and behold, he proceeds with a spade to the seven! Again I let East take the ten and return the five-spot. GIB takes the ace in tempo! One down. I ask him why he didn't 'just' let the spade run to the nine. GIB shrugs his shoulders, saying, "Ah well, I don't need to get my name in the paper. I'm just a simple and unassuming computer program. Sure, I noticed the possibility of an intrafinesse, but that's for the macho's among us. After the weak two, the probability of a three-three spade break is about the same as that of a doubleton. But the intrafinesse works only one time in three (honour-eight or eight-small), even if West has a doubleton. I simply take the superior line (spades three-three) - that's what I studied for."
Straight talk, that was, but it seems GIB is right. It reminds me somewhat of the young Hague expert Roefi Nurmohamed who, after awhile, was no longer capable of taking a normal finesse. The intrafinesse had become the be-all and end-all. This was, I believe immediately following his underruffing period, but before he started preempting on semi-forcing hands. It costs a few points, but one does get one's name in the paper from time to time.
Of course, Helgemo possesses something the computer doesn't: table presence.
The moment your intuition tells you that the spades are four-two for sure,
then Helgemo's line is best. I next tell GIB that I've peeked in East's
hand and noticed four spades. Then I let him play the hand again: spade
to the seven and ten; and 5
comes back. GIB plays low, wins the trick and makes his contract. "Yeah,
that way it's a cinch," I hear him mutter.
To
IMP Bridge Index
J 9 7
K 9 7