The Cardturner (37 page)

Now you know Trapp has the ace, so you play dummy's
10.

This is what had Trapp so steamed. It was why he and Toni got into a fight, and why Alton became his new cardturner.

"I'm the only one to bid the grand, which would be cold if spades weren't five-one."

"Unless you can count thirteen tricks, don't bid a grand."

"I had thirteen tricks! Hell, I had fifteen tricks, as long as spades broke decently."

That last comment was a joke. You can never take more than thirteen tricks. Bidding a grand means bidding a grand slam. The speaker claimed he would have made it if the spades had been divided more evenly between his opponents.

If you are missing six cards in a suit, they will divide 5-1 or worse only about 16 percent of the time. So it does sound like bad luck, not bad bidding.

"Trapp!" she demanded. "One banana, pass, pass, two no-trump. Is that unusual?"

It sounded unusual to me.

"That's not how I play it," said my uncle.

You can't bid one banana. It isn't a suit. "One banana" simply means the bid of any suit except no-trump. One spade, one heart, one diamond, or one club—it doesn't matter.

"Is that unusual?" refers to a common bidding convention used by most duplicate bridge players, called the
unusual two no-trump
bid.

The
unusual two no-trump
bid is usually made directly after an opponent bids. Most commonly it shows the two lowest-ranked unbid suits.

So if an opponent opens the bidding with one heart and you bid two no-trump, you're telling your partner you have a hand with at least five clubs and at least five diamonds. If an opponent opens the bidding with one diamond, a bid of two no-trump would show five hearts and five clubs.

In the situation described here, the bid of two no-trump isn't made directly after the bid. There are two passes in between.

One banana—pass—pass—two no-trump.

Trapp indicated he would not take that as "unusual," and neither would I. In this instance, it would be the "usual" two no-trump bid, showing about twenty points including one or two high bananas.

She was nicely dressed, as were most of the women in the room. It was mostly the men who were slobs.

I have a theory about that. Bridge requires such a high degree of concentration, you want to be comfortable so as not to have to think about anything else. Women feel comfortable when they're confident about the way they look. Men feel comfortable when they're . . . well, when we're comfortable.

Not every man, and not every woman, of course, but it occurs often enough for Alton to have noticed.

the skip:

It was like some sort of odd dance, with the people moving in one direction and the boards moving in the other. After the seventh round, every East-West pair skipped a table to avoid playing boards they had already played.

When there is an even number of tables (fourteen, in this case), a skip is needed to avoid playing the same boards twice. If there is an odd number of tables, no skip is necessary.

Pages 40-41:

One time it lurched a bit, and almost died, but I doubted Trapp noticed. We were driving back to his house after the Wednesday game, so his mind was on some bridge hand.

He would think not only about what he should have done differently, but also about what the opponents should have done, and what he would have done if they had done that. I could have driven into a ditch and he wouldn't have noticed.

Bridge players are famous for getting lost in their thoughts, especially when driving. Once after a tournament I drove forty-five miles past my exit before I finally looked around and thought, "Where am I?"

"
Aces and spaces . . ."

"I had nine points, but it was all quacks. . . ."

"Odd-even discards?"

You often hear bridge players complain about
aces and spaces.
An example would be a hand like this:

Notice all the space between the ace and the next-highest card in that suit. True, a ten or a nine would be nice, but I like aces too much to ever complain about the spaces.

A
quack
is a queen or a jack. Nine points refers to the hand evaluation system that Toni taught to Alton. Charles Goren developed this system over fifty years ago, and while it's still used today, most experts agree it is not entirely accurate. Aces and kings are slightly undervalued, and queens and jacks, or quacks, are slightly overvalued.

Odd-even discards
refers to a type of defensive signal. If a defender discards an odd card (3, 5, 7, or 9), it means she wants her partner to lead that suit. For example, if she discards the
5, she's asking her partner to lead a diamond the next time he gets a chance. If she discards an even card, the
4 for example, she's telling her partner she doesn't like diamonds.

The problem with this system is that sometimes you only have even cards in suits you like and odd cards in suits you don't like.

If you double, you're saying you think your opponents bid too high. If they make their contract, they'll get double the points, but if you set them, then you'll get double the points.

It's more complicated than that, but the general idea is correct.

The chart below shows how many points you get for setting a contract doubled or undoubled. The vulnerability applies to the side that bid the contract, not the side that doubled it.

I stopped the chart after down-seven, but you can actually go down as many as thirteen tricks on a hand (if you bid a grand and don't take any tricks). If you're wondering if any idiot actually has gone down as many seven tricks on one hand, yes, I have.

Yarborough:

The odds of being dealt a Yarborough (no card higher than a nine) are 1,827 to one.

"Bidding's not that hard, once you learn the basics. Trapp and Gloria use a complicated system, but you don't have to do all that. You just have to know which bids are
game-forcing,
which ones are
invitational,
and which ones are just
cooperative."

Using the Goren point-count system, you should bid
game
if you and your partner have a total of 26 points. So if your partner opens the bidding (promising at least 13 points), and you have 13 points in your hand, you know you belong
in game.
Your partner, however, doesn't know this, and it's your job to let him in on the secret.

A
game-forcing
bid is one that tells your partner, "I want to bid
game
on this hand, so you must not pass until we have done so."

An
invitational
bid is one that invites game. Again, your partner made an opening bid, but this time you have about 10 to 12 points. You'll make a bid that invites your partner to bid game if she has a little extra.

A
cooperative
bid shows about 6 to 9 points. Your partner opened the bidding, and you have too many points to pass, but you're not interested in bidding game unless she has a lot extra.

There are many different bidding situations, but the key to good bidding is understanding whether a bid that you or your partner makes is game-forcing, invitational, or cooperative.

"After going into the tank for ten minutes, he leads a club, giving the declarer a sluff and a ruff! Then, in the postmortem, he asks me if there was something he could have done differently. ‘Yes,' I tell him. ‘Play
any other
card.' "

To
go into the tank
means to think for a long time before playing a card or making a bid. To
ruff
means to win a trick by playing a trump. To
sluff
means to discard. A
sluff and a ruff
occurs when a defender leads a suit in which both declarer and dummy are void, and where both hands have trump cards. It allows a declarer to ruff in one hand and to discard in the other, often giving her an extra trick. For example:

Spades are trump. It looks like you have to lose a club trick, but if an opponent leads a heart, you will get a sluff and a ruff. You can discard a club from one hand and trump it in the other. This will allow you to win all the rest of the tricks. (Try it!)