A Simple Game?

A Simple Game?

A former partner of mine, a pretty fine player, used to say, "Bridge is such a goddamn simple game." He said it more in bafflement than in arrogance. Now, it's a comment that needs a couple of asterisks, I would say. We can be sure it doesn't look simple to a rank neophyte who can only feel somewhat overwhelmed by the complexities of good bidding practices and good play. And at the other extreme, I think it would be unjustly condescending to the experts to suggest that they are, after all, only excelling at a simple game. I think the experts 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. Indeed, I had my own aphorism I used to offer students that I think is in line with his comment, to wit: Bridge is a tough game to learn and an easy game to play. Now I realize that I'm skirting contradiction in agreeing to "simple game" as I speak of complexities and and I will try to steer a course that resolves the apparent contradiction.
The principles are basically simple and easy to understand (for those who aren't too high and mighty to pay attention to them). That's not to say it's easy to come in first place, for if half the field understands the principles, those others too will have as much claim to first place as you. But it is to suggest that you can have a pretty formidable game, not against the experts but against all below that level, which is to say 98% of bridge players, a competitive game, a game you're proud of without encountering complexities and depths it would take a more devoted player to fathom.
As for the hands, well, I would say 95% of them are fairly simple and 95% of butchered contracts go down through fairly elementary mistakes on the part of declarer. Here I have listed the common reasons for butchered contracts with illustrations of each, and if there are any highly complex hands there, please drop me a note and I'll reconsider its inclusion. Here are a couple of hands I just came across that I think are fairly simple (though going a little above simply cashing out all top winners, and you don't want that simple a game, do you?). I offer them to allow the reader to determine if we're on the same wave length:
7 5 4
K Q 7
A K 10 5
7 6 5
10 7 6 4 J 9
10 9 4 3 J 8 6 2
9 7 8 6 4 2
J 10 9 A 5 7
A K Q 6
A 5 Vulnerability: None
Q J 3 Opening lead: 10 of hearts
K Q 5 4 Contract: 6 no

Dummy comes down and you see at a glance that you have 10 top winners with a certain 11th in clubs. So your first task is to win the lead in dummy, temporarily blocking the heart suit, and lead a club to the K. It holds. You're not sure whether East ducked or West did and is slavering over another club lead with A J 10 x x. You pause a moment and note that there just might be a 12th winner in a 3-3 spade break. Which to try? And can we test them sequentially? Aye, there's the rub.
We don't know. You're safe testing spades if West has the long ones and East the A of clubs, for East won't be able to hit his partner. But suppose East has the long spades and the ace of clubs. Then testing spades would uncover a spade winner for East to cash out in addition to the A of clubs, when hitting clubs again without touching spades would have worked. I personally think that testing spades offers a bit higher a chance by the odds, but I don't want to reduce the hand to a simple mathematical formula and don't suppose many readers would want me to. So I'll have to say that if one way works and the other doesn't, I would respect either choice. Declarer has to make some decision and I don't think it does much for the game to jump on partner for any reasonable choice that happnes not to work.
But you can see from the cards above that either way works. Testing spades won't bring a 12th trick, but the long spades lie with West, and if East does indeed have that A of clubs, you'll produce your 12th winner leading toward your second honor. And it's not so easy to respect a failure to try either way. Which was the case for several declarers.
This was the hand that prompted me to list the most common reasons for butchered contracts, wherein I listed postponing risk (until it's too late) third. Indeed, I now rather wish I'd earlier initiated a category called risk where I put in the many times declarers had makable contracts but couldn't bring themselves to take a risk until they couldn't put it off and thus ensured their defeat. In any event, I think we're talking about very simple concepts here. You want to lead toward your honors (by and large). Indeed, one declarer ensured his defeat by leading the K of clubs into the A on his right, wiping out any chance for his contract, though he had plenty of entries to lead toward those honors.
Here is one more I'll just give you the link on. Now one thing is fairly certain, I might say: those who play transfer bids should be ready to find the open hand the master, since that is in fact the purpose of transfer bids to put the long (major) suit in dummy), and to play accordingly. Anyway, it's a very elementary hand, particularly with a club lead, which doesn't give declarer a trick he can't generate on his own, but does clarify the hand: two club winners, five spades, a diamond, and after knocking out the K of hearts, a second heart winner, for 10. Bingo.
But six declarers, playing the hand after a transfer, felt a need to ruff the third round of clubs and were overruffed. A seventh declarer who went down played with the long spades in the closed hand, and so wasn't befuddled by a long suit in dummy. But he declined to take the club hook when he was in a position to and lost that trick, reasons 2 and 3 on the list of how declarers butcher contracts. (Failure to take a simple finesse, and postponing risk.)
So how are we doing? Are we on the same wave length? I'm not saying novices should whip them home, but are we not talking about fairly elementary rules, fairly simple matters?
And I might take up a fairly simple principle in bidding, namely that 33 hcp's on balanced hands is a pretty good benchmark figure for bidding a little slam or not, if you're falling short. Now a few disclaimers are necessary. It's not offered as a lock for slam if you do have 33 hcp's (though I would say unmakable contracts in such a situation are rare), nor is it always easy to determine where you are vis-à-vis 33 hcp's if your side has spent two rounds bidding suits so that it's no longer clear how much anyone has been bidding on distribution, how much on high cards. But having said that I will say that zeroing in on 33 points tells you a lot more of your potential than Blackwood will and that you'd do well to pay attention to it. And indeed, if it's not always easy to determine if your side has that number, sometimes, not rarely, particularly when someone has opened a no trump, it's fairly easy to determine that you're definitely there, definitely short, or in the land of uncertainty, where a raise to 4 NT is considered invitational, not Blackwood, where the opener is expected to go on with a maximum, stop with a minimum.
dd>It's a simple principle, certainly. You've mastered the mathematics if you've graduated from the second grade and will find it does you great service. Yet the principle is flouted again and again. Here is a hand depicting that common practice of pushing the envelope on a shortfall from 33.

In any event, I offer this view on the simplicity of most hands, most mistakes, not to encourage laziness or the presumption of having mastered enough of the game to quit learning. There's always something more to learn and good play does require concentration and focus. Rather I make a stab at using my former partner's term to say that you don't have to be genius of some sort to have a good game (I'm not talking to professionals, of course), a respectable game, a game formidable enough that you're a little proud of it, where you finish commonly in the upper levels of finishers. I'm saying that with a respect for the basic principles and common sense, and a touch of daring (not too danged much now), a touch of imagination, you can have a right fine game.
This web page is basically dedicated to to that proposition. Declarers' mistakes are almost all a matter of failing to pay attention to elementary principles. I do have some double squeezes, and indeed a few recondite elemenary squeezes, though even there, I point to squeezes that should be found by following simple principles (rectifying the count, keeping communication, cashing out suits not involved). For the rest, there's no category where any hands demand more than common sense and a focus on what you need to make your contract. That's not a complex concept, now, is it?
I offer this web page not as the final step toward a formidable game, but as a first step. I think players eschew and disdain these elementary lessons at their cost.