Sin #2. Sacrificing

Frussell sacrificing his partner to the bridge gods for a 12% chance at a top

I am the expert on bad sacrifices. 

It's because I suck at them.

When I don't do it, it's wrong. When I do it, it's wrong. It's so rare that the colors are right, the stars align and partner has the exact 7 count I need from him.

In my younger days I used to be obsessed with finding 12% slams. Now I am obsessed with finding the 12% genius sacrifice. But not at teams. I get yelled at for that...

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, here is a the definition from the urban dictionary:

Sacrificing - verb. - 1. making your partner play some crappy doubled contract because you don't know how to play good defense. 

                               2. Making yourself play a really crappy contract because you are a hand hog and you don't get enough excitement at home
Times to sacrifice:

1. When you have it in your hand and are absolutely sure the opponents can make their contract and you won't push them to slam.

If you don't have it in hand, hopefully partner has made a bid that you CAN TRUST which gives you a great idea of what to do. This is why it is SO important to make sound pre-empts and sound overcalls. And why those gosh darn Michaels and Unusual 2NT bids will destroy you. You give the opponents information they are not entitled to and mislead your partner.

Sometimes partner does genius things. But if you are bidding like a big dummy, partner's brilliance will be wasted.

2. Favorable vulnerability  -  

Red vs Red or Green vs Green, against a game contract, down 2 isn't unrealistic but many times these are hands where you might have some defense. Maybe the opponents won't play you for the stiff King.

Green vs Red you can go down 3. This is the best time to sacrifice

If you find the the genius doubled down 1 Red vs Green you are a bridge god and must now move on to quantum physics.

If you find a genius sacrifice over a slam you will be barred from the acbl for being a mind reader. Mind reading is cheating. People don't always makes slams when they bid them. Don't believe them. Unless you are a mind reader.
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Brief story.

Against scrappy players at a club game Lefty opens 1C. My partner bids 1D. I trust him. He's not doing this with 5 points and 1 of the the top 8 honors. Righty bids 1S. I pass (or something) and lefty bids 2C.   Pass. 4NT! AHHHhhhHH! Pass. 5 Hearts. Double by partner! Lead directing! As you can imagine this story only goes downhill from here. For what's it's worth Lefty gave the wrong number of Aces. Righty, after his partner's minimum opening, and seeing that he's getting a heart lead, jumps to 6S.

I think and I think and I think some more.

I passed, led a heart and we set it 4 and all lived happily ever after.

Ok, not really. I'm short in spades and I have scattered values (like 10 maybe?) and 4 diamonds. I probably have the auction wrong but opener showed a minimum AND the colors are right! All he has to do is go down 6! Righty HAS to be short in hearts, right? Why else would he jump to 6S after being guaranteed a heart lead?

I bid 7 diamonds and double myself. At the request of my partner I leave the table to take care of something. I return with 5 tricks to go and notice that this sac is going mysteriously well. Down 4? What the frick?

I ask partner if 6S is ice cold. He responds with the pleasant response of "I don't know..." not wanting to rub it in. Righty chimes in and says something like "No chance in hell, after I lose the first 3 heart tricks!"

Lolz. So no more Sacs against slams. I'll leave that for the cyborgs.

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3. After the hand is played and you are replaying the hand if you mind.

Wow! 7CX down 6 would have be great! In my mind I dropped the stiff King of spades offsides! AND I finessed for the 9 of hearts! I'm a genius! Yay!

Times not to sacrifice:

-When you might have a chance to defend the contract

-When you feel bad about pushing them to a game they may not have found and you feel you have to make up for it

-When you or partner has pre-empted and the opponents have guessed their way into a game. The damage has been done. Maybe they missed slam, maybe they missed their 9 card diamond fit. Just be happy you made them guess - don't hand them 1100 on a silver platter.

-When you might push your opponents to slam

-When you start thinking of hands that partner could have that would make it a genius bid.

Hmm... If partner has the Jack of clubs AND less than two hear-PASS!

So before I grill some silly low percentage thing my opponents did today, I'm going to confess one of my own sins. 

Today I picked up this hand.

Now before you rush down to the comments section and rip me a new (insert least favorite body part), let me give you the back story.

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The person on my left very rarely has his bid. 

This is not a good excuse. I let my emotions and opinions get the best of me and affect my judgement. This is never good. Forget the last hand, focus on this one. ALWAYS do what won't get you yelled at. I've learned that you will never get yelled at for not finding a genius sacrifice. 

At a team event at a local club game I had a "genius" sacrifice RED vs green. I was about 50% sure that I could go down one and be a hero. I was about 12% sure that my opponents were cold for their contract. I decided not to make a sacrifice 1) because it was a team game and big numbers will kill you. 2) because I wasn't very confident that it was right. I've been "confident" before and that's cost me 800 on more than twelve occasions. 

Anyways I passed and they made 4 and I didn't get yelled at. That's my goal in team games. If we lose, no one can yell at me. 

Ok, so back to this hand.

But first, the one before it.

Lefty opens 4H - Double by partner, pass by righty. Lefty makes what I consider a very unethical comment. "Oh well!" We can talk ethics later, and I don't know the intention behind the comment. Maybe he thought he might go down, doubled, in this obvious takeout situation. I bid 5C, lefty now comes back to life with 5H, shutting his partner out of the bidding. For the record 5C is down 2.

We can set 5H on the lead of the Ace of diamonds and a spade switch, cashing the A and K. Partner leads the King of clubs from KQxxx into the Ace, lefty has a void, and pitches his stiff diamond. For those of you keeping track, Lefty has 9 hearts to the AKJ10, void in clubs, stiff diamonds and 3 spades. 

I consider this a ridiculous bidding sequence and I consider the comment very ridiculous as well. We can save that discussion for another time, but anyways I let this get to me and affect my judgment and it was silly and anti-percentage blah blah blah.

So when I picked up my very special pile of poo--

--Lefty opens 1H, partner doubles, righty passes. I bid 2 diamonds.

Lefty now bids 2H which for him can be any number of hands. 5 hearts to the J, 6 hearts with 12 points, etc.

Partner now competes to 3D, which I take as having some values. Maybe my partner's bid is wrong but this post isn't called "my partner's sins," it's called "I suck at Sac-ing.

Righty raises to 3H and I now I have a choice to make. Actually there is no choice to make. I have to pass. But rules are meant to be broken, right? Not really.Here are the thoughts that ran through my mind:

My stiff spade looks oh so pretty, and I know my partner is short in hearts. To raise diamonds he has to have a few. He doesn't know I have 5, and he doesn't know I have such wonderful shape. I've bid with less than 4 points lots of times, and it's worked out in the past, why not now! Lefty never has his bid, and righty can't have too much if he passed originally. I'll push lefty up to 4H and he'll go down and we can all giggle at how he bid so many times with 5 hearts to the Jack and 12 points.

4D by me, 4H on my left and now partner bids 5D. We've both lied to each other, both double counted our distribution, both failed to notice the vulnerability - Red vs Green btw... LOL.

Double on my right. I'm never going down one. I should quit bridge. Maybe go back to Free Cell.

The Ace of hearts is led.

Dummy appears and although it's not exactly what I expected, it doesn't matter. I'm screwed. I never had a prayer to go down 1. Maybe I can save face and go down 2 and not look like an idiot who is trying to write a bridge blog.

I think he switched to the 6 of spades, but who cares. I play the Ace and a low diamond to my Q, won by lefty.

He plays the jack of clubs, I cover to the King. As I settle on playing righty for the 9 of clubs, the Ace comes out of his hand. Lefty plays a card lower than the jack. Another club, ruffed with the Jack of diamonds as I lay my hand on the table and claim, "cross ruff." 

At least that's what I think I mumbled. 

The kibitzer remarks that they defended 5 hearts, but obviously this is better. Obviously. 

All four beautiful hands:

Even if we pretend the vulnerability is reversed, we have no business playing this hand. It's a stab in the dark and we paid for it. The voice in my head told me to "get that damn hand off the four diamonds card!" but I didn't listen. I made an encouraging bid when I had an easy pass. Partner can always compete if he has something. Then I won't get yelled at.  

I will walk into the bridge club with my head down in shame for the next week.

I think this hand is written on the bathroom wall. It says something like "4D!? lolz"

Ok, now for a real sin.

After a rough day at the boardroom, my partner and I venture to the East. Over dinner and drinks we discuss our sins and get into a heated debate over defense against Flannery. After they throw us out of the restaurant we stumble into what looks like bridge club.

We are playing Precision which annoys the crap out of everyone and causes them to make absurdly ridiculous bids.

I promised myself I wouldn't make this a post about the horrible things people do over a strong club, but I have to mention it briefly. Some time in the future I will post a more detailed defense against the strong club system, but for now let me just show you the sin of my opponents.

In first seat I pick up the best hand I've had in a while. No doubt, partner will find a way to steal the hand because he is a hand hog. Maybe I can bid 6NT before he does...

In precision, we open all hands with 16+ HCP an artificial One Club. Partner will probably bid 1D showing 0-7 HCP and I can decide to show him a 'balanced' 20-21 points or jump in diamonds and hope we land on our feet.

But before I get to figure out my best rebid, Lefty jumps in with 3H.

At this point I'm a little annoyed. This happened once already today and it screwed us good. Every other good hand I've had, my partner has found a way to steal the bid, and it's inevitably happening here.

Partner doubles to show 5-7 points. 

Had Lefty passed, my range for partner would be 0-7, so there would be some more guesswork for me. I would have to invent a bid that describes my hand as best I can. 1C-1D-3D shows the equivalent of a 2C opener in standard in favor of diamonds. But do I really want to play this hand in diamonds? A jump to 2NT shows 20-21 HCP, balanced, but do I really want to play NT with my stiff heart? Lefty has made it easy. We are not playing NT and unfortunately we are not playing 6NT. Better still, we know where the heart honors *should be and I've just been given a clue that I am not entitled to added to the fact that it's not stopping me. All that bidding space for nothing.

As it turns out, life is now much easier for me. When righty passes, I have the easiest bid in the world and it describes my hand better than I ever could without interference. 4H! We have values for game. 5C might not make but I'm certainly not defending 3H not vulnerable when there is a good chance we have 600+. If partner bids 5C I had my apology ready, but I was hoping he'd bid 4S or 5D.

Lefty passes, partner bids 4S. Yay!

And now the magic happens..

Righty trusted partner's bid, saw the colors, and had a great feeling about a sacrifice. Granted his bid of 5H is anti-percentage :) - his partner did him no favors by grossly misrepresenting her hand. And all because she HAD to find a bid over a strong club, just to mess with us. The "I have more than 5 cards in one suit so I'm reaching into my bidding box as far as I can without losing a hand" bid. We can about talk pre-empts more later. As you'll see it's disgusting. It fools no one, stops no one, screws partner. Yippy!

Looking at my hand I see that the colors are not great. But a great man once said, "The 5 level is for the opponents." We might make 5S. We might not set hearts 4. My opponents might rub their genius sac in my face and I might be getting a zero. 

But then again, maybe not.

The red card hits the table. 

Lefty's face turns off white/cream.

Righty perks up and reminds her she only has to make 2! (8 tricks)

Partner leads the Jack of spades and dummy comes down:

As is often the case, the defense is much easier over a sacrifice. You can't really count on anybody mis-defending.

My fancy schmancy bidding system helps too. Gloat gloat gloat. Gloat Goat.

My partner would not lead the Jack from KJ10 in this bidding sequence. Possibly in a different contract, but I think it is usually right to lead the King with that holding. I'm not counting him for any points in hearts. He has 5-7, with 1 point in spades, 0 in hearts. At most he can have one point in clubs. 

I feel comfortable under leading my AQ of diamonds.

This is a very specific example, but the point still stands of how important it is to pay attention to the bidding and try to envision partner and declarer's hand.

Declarer puts in the jack and partner wins the king. I lose nothing from this play. Maybe partner has the stiff king of diamonds, can get back to me so I can cash a diamond and play another, possibly promoting a trump trick. If partner has something like 10xx or 10xxx in hearts, maybe we can get The Snowman We So Desperately Seek (the original title of this blog).

Partner returns a diamond to my queen, declarer ruffs low. 

She plays a low heart to her King, not considering the possibilities that I might have stiff Ace. Maybe she should read into my 4H bid more. It doesn't really matter. Hearts could be 2-2 and I could have AJ. Or maybe I'm void in hearts, or maybe I have the stiff Jack so I don't find her play unreasonable. 

She's probably not thinking about the percentages of the heart splits right now. She's thinking, "Oh God, why did I mislead my partner into this absurd contract! Why did I have to initiate a peeing contest with these precision playing poopy-heads?"

I return a low diamond, protecting my Ace, ruffed by declarer and over ruffed by partner. He sends back a spade because he doesn't want to break clubs. Perfect. She wins her fortunately placed King of spades and starts playing hearts. Does she really think we are going to discard wrong? Girl, please.

I save my clubs because I've already decided that my partner has the Jack, hopefully it's guarded. I envision the hand that partner needs to have for us to set it enough.

Declarer plays a low club to her king and my Ace, I send back a spade. I've saved the high diamond at this point and she's only getting to the board one more time.

She plays the 10 of clubs, covered (this is key) to the Queen. She plays a diamond to her hand and has to give up the last club for down 4 and a cold top.

Despite bidding one of the most horrible bids of my life today, I actually have found good sacrifices a few times in my life. When you find them they are very rewarding. I don't mean to discourage anyone from sac-ing because I think it's a crucial part of the game. Figuring out when to do them, when not to do them is essential for the growth of every bridge player.

If I ever find a genius sac I will be sure to share it assuming it's over 12%.