Author Archives: Mike

I Fought the Rule of Nine

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And lost. Continue reading →

The Rule of Nine, which was devised by Mel Colchamiro, is designed to aid in the decision as to whether to convert a low-level takeout double by one’s partner to penalty. One adds the following together:

  • The number of cards in the opponent’s trump suit.
  • The number of honors (tens count) in the opponent’s trump suit.
  • The level of the bid.

If the total is nine or more, it is OK to pass. Note: overall strength is not a factor. The choice is between offense and defense.

* * *
Sitting West at unfavorable vulnerability I saw two passes. I had to decide whether to open the following hand:

♠ 8 7 5    ♥ K Q 10 6 4    ♦ Q 8 6 3    ♣ 4
Yes, I know that this hand does not meet the most (or even least) disciplined standards for weak two bids, but I hate to let the opponents use every level of the bidding box, especially when I am positive that it is their hand. So, I drew the 2♥ card from my box and set it confidently on the table.

South, not suriprisingly, doubled. Partner passed. Oh, that was a bad sign. He would have raised to three if he had three hearts. So, we had at most seven hearts. North paused to evaluate her hand for a few hours while I mentally enumerated the popes of the eleventh century so as not to give away my bluff. Alas, in the end North passed. I had no choice but to pass and take my medicine. This was the layout:

Board16

So, we had twelve points, and they had twenty-eight. I needed to hold it to down one unless the opponents had a rather freakish slam. Even at that, I had to hold it to down three. The first goal was obviously not possible unless they revoked two or three times while they were cashing their aces and kings, but I did manage to garner five tricks for -800.

North’s hand did not come close to meeting the Rule of Nine. Even if you change it to the Rule of Eight (because I only had five hearts), her hand fell short. So, Mel would predict that she made a big mistake in passing. Sure enough, North-South can make six spades or six clubs, and the play is not even that difficult. The only challenge is finding the ♣Q.

Unfortunately for me, no pair had the temerity to try the Moysian slam or the eight-card club slam. Nine played in 3NT, two played in 4♠, and one played in 3♣. Moreover, only one of the three who played in the black suits managed to bring home twelve tricks. So, it appeared that I made a big mistake by bidding.

However, that club bid intrigued me. The people who played there were pretty good players. I suspect that the person sitting in my chair at that table (the most aggressive bidder in the club) must have opened 2♥! [I found out later that he DID open 2♥.] If North followed the Rule of Nine, he would have probably bid clubs in response to his partner’s inevitable double. I would have. Playing lebensohl* he would probably bid 3♣. At that point South would either move to a club game or, if they were playing Western cue-bids, ask for a heart stopper. The latter approach would land them in 3NT.

If North-South was NOT playing lebensohl, what would North bid? Maybe he would venture 3♣, and South, armed with the knowledge that eleven tricks in a minor is always difficult, might just pass because she was afraid of the heart suit. Or maybe she would raise clubs. In either case they would not find the easy notrump game.

If so, then it was all or nothing. If North violated Mel’s rule and passed, East-West got a zero. If North bid, East-West won all the marbles.

So, was I chastened by this result? No, but in the future I might be a little more careful at unfavorable vulnerability.

* The lebensohl convention after a double of a weak two bid uses a relay from 2NT to 3♣ so that advancer can distinguish between weak hands and ones with at least seven points.

The Impossible Spade Advance

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What was partner thinking? Continue reading →

In a pairs game the deal is on your left. Only the opponents are vulnerable. Dealer opens 1♣, partner passes, and RHO bids 1♥. No thought is required for you to bid 2♦ with the following hand:

♠ 6 5   ♥ 8 4   ♦ A Q 10 4 3 2   ♣A 9 4
LHO raises to 2♥, partner comes alive with a bid of 2♠, and RHO passes. The first two rounds of the auction are therefore:

LHO Partner RHO> You
1♣ Pass 1♥ 2♦
2♣ 2♠ Pass ?

You are playing non-forcing constructive advances, so partner’s spade bid is not forcing. Should you rebid your diamonds or pass? Maybe a word should be inserted as to what “non-forcing constructive” means. My understanding is that it reflects a willingness for the auction to continue. In practical terms that means that partner either has tolerance for overcaller’s suit or that he/she has a self-sufficient suit.

Well, what do the opponents have? LHO probably has 12-15 points and four hearts. RHO probably has only four hearts, and he cannot find another bid after partner’s overcall.

And what about partner? Let us immediately discard the thought that partner might have six spades. This person has often inserted jump overcalls with no honors at all. Furthermore he loves to bid spades. If he had been dealt five spades that were in any sense self-sufficient and as many as eight points, he almost certainly would have reached for the top of the box on the first round. Furthermore, partner was “off the hook.” He could have passed 2♥. He must have a pretty good hand, and his spades cannot be that special, or he would have mentioned them the first time.

So, I can picture three possible explanations for his bid: (1) When he combined his two spade fragments together he realized that he had a spade suit that was worth bidding. (2) He realized that one or two of his clubs were really spades. (3) He could tolerate diamonds, but he thought that 2♠ or 2NT might be a better contract.

It was nearly 10:30 at night, and partner (who was, in fact me) had in the past exhibited both of the first two behaviors even at much earlier hours. This time, however, he held this assortment:

♠ A K 10 3   ♥ 9 5   ♦ J 8 7   ♣K Q 8 5
W.C. Fields would have called the opponents’ bidding the “Ethiopan in the fuel supply.” The opener had a flat 12-pointer, and responder made due with a king and two jacks. The latter also refrained from rebidding 3♥ even though he did, in fact have five hearts. So, it was difficult for the overcaller to imagine that advancer had such a good hand. At first I thought that she, with whom I had not played in a year or so, was just not used to my style, but two of my long-time partners agreed with her. Maybe I do not understand what “non-forcing constructive” means or maybe the concept changes when partner has passed.

Riverside Reflection

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Thoughts from my seven-mile walk. Continue reading →

The rain on Sunday was predicted to begin around noon. I managed to drag myself outside to take a walk alongside the Connecticut River at about 9:15. I made it back to the office just as the precipitation was beginning two hours later.

I had been planning to listen to Pavarotti and Sutherland in Turandot, which is just about the right length for this journey. However, I soon realized that I had left my headphones at the house. I reckoned that it was not worth driving back to pick them up, and I certainly did not wish to risk getting drenched. So, I set out without my iPod. This had the inadvertent effect of allowing me to be a little less oblivious than usual concerning the surroundings. Here are a few things that I observed.

I encountered no other pedestrians during the entire period. In Volunteer Park, a narrow strip of land in East Windsor that abuts the river, someone was vigorously removing brush. Even though I passed within a few feet of her, she paid no attention to me as she removed small bushes and clipped them into pieces that she deposited into large paper bags. She was still at it when I returned ninety minutes later. I have no idea if she was employed by the city or undertook this campaign on her own volition. Her objective was likewise beyond my ken. It certainly made the river more accessible and removed cover for the animals.

I learned that the beverage preferred by litterbugs on the long, straight, sparsely-used road is, by a large margin, Bud Light. I counted more than a dozen empty cardboard eighteen-packs spaced out at intervals on the east side of the road. That is more than two hundred cans of beer! I also saw a couple of dozen cans, but most of them were on the west side of the road. I could not think of a scenario that would explain why the cartons were almost exclusively deposited on one side of the road, but the cans were predominantly on the other side.

The second most common item of detritus was the Coors Light can. A theme seemed to be developing. The litterbugs evidenced a strong predilection for light beer, and fairly expensive brews at that. Could they possibly think that these brands were the tastiest? Were they counting their calories? Did they want to limit their consumption of alcohol while maximizing their consumption of the other aspects of beer? Maybe they got a deal or a five-fingered discount on these brands, or maybe they just liked to pee. I mean, if you are going to get drunk, do you really like maximizing the amount of liquid required, or do you try to reach the ultimate state as soon as possible? I do not claim to know the answer. I guess that it is a question for the ages.

I noticed a pink pair of panties on the side of the road in an undeveloped area. I glanced at them long enough to realized that they came from a store that specialized in “women’s sizes.” I did not slow down to inspect them. In fact, I sped up a little.

As locations in Connecticut, one of the most densely populated states in America, go, this road is pretty remote. Here and there I saw quite a few parked trucks that had obviously not been driven for decades. I must have seen them before, but they did not make much of an impression. I must say that my dominant thought at the end of this walk was that people are pigs.

Near the end of the road the nearby railroad track crosses the river. Just north of the bridge is a sign that says “Stompers Point.” I had noticed this sign many times and wondered about it, but I had never noticed the building just north of the sign. It now has many trucks parked around it, but for the first time I paid attention to the long-abandoned building itself. I think that it must have been a station at one time, or at least that is definitely what it looks like.

When I finished walking I searched the Internet for information about the building, but I was unable to find much. I did find this photo on Flicker. I also discovered some newspaper stories about an attempt to build a new train station not at this location but in the Thompsonville section of Enfield, which is easily the most downtrodden area between Hartford and Springfield, MA. The proponents of the scheme have convinced themselves that a train station there will somehow revitalize Thompsonville. I will believe it when I see it.

One sign I did not see. There used to be a green street sign with “Enfield Town Line” on one side and “East Windsor Town Line” on the other. There was no sign of it at all. I suspect that it is now decorating someone’s bedroom. It would not surprise me to learn that this someone has downed a few Bud Lights.

The last quarter mile of my walking route is on Route 5. I noticed two peculiar things there. At the stoplight for the road leading to the industrial park stand a Dunkin Donuts and three other buildings. Two of them – Enfield Small Appliance Repair (which is comfortably located in East Windsor far south of the Enfield line) and the East Windsor Diner – have been abandoned for several years, and little or no effort seems to have been made to sell the properties or to turn them into something useful. I wonder why not.

The other building is even stranger. The building that faces the highway is a John Deere dealership that also sells Honda and Yamaha equipment such as generators, lawn mowers, and snow throwers. I bought my lawnmower there, but I never noticed that it shares a parking lot with a two-story structure that houses a hair salon and a store called Liquid Sun. I thought that the latter must sell that stuff that makes you look like you have a suntan in the winter, but I discovered that I was wrong when I looked it up on the Internet. They actually sell lighting and other products for people who grow plants indoors. I knew that kits for this were available in places with liberal marijuana laws, but I never dreamed that you could buy them at a retail outlet in this town.

One Century Ago

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Things were very different. Continue reading →

It often can seem as if the papacy is stuck in a rut. The pope is seldom seen without his traditional papal garments – either the vestments with the miter or his white cassock with the zucchetto, the little white skull cap. Photos from a century ago depict a different face wearing very similar attire. Similarly, the pronouncements from the popes on so many issues – contraception, abortion, homosexuality, women in the clergy, clerical celibacy – seem not to have changed at all in the last one hundred years.

This appearance is quite deceptive. The institution of the papacy has actually changed dramatically. Even a cursory examination of the man who sat on the Throne of Peter in 1913 reveals someone totally different from the last handful of pontiffs. Pius X, who reigned from 1903 to 1914, was the last pope to be declared a saint. The following observations about his pontificate emphasize how far the Church, admittedly a slow-moving institution, has come in that period.

    • By all rights Pius X should never have even been elected pope. Cardinal Rampolla was leading in the votes when a Polish cardinal vetoed his selection. How, one might well ask, did this cardinal have the right to prohibit anyone from being elected the leader of the Church? Because he had in his possession a piece of paper that said that Franz Josef, the Austro-Hungarian Emperor did not want Rampolla. For centuries the Holy Roman Emperor and a few other powerful rulers were awarded the privilege of vetoing papal selections. 1903 was the last conclave in which it was exercised. Pius X abolished the practice, but he did not decline the nomination that resulted from it.
    • Pius X was the third of five pontiffs who claimed to be unable to resume their rightful role as the legitimate king of central Italy because they were were being held prisoner in the Vatican by the Italian government. In fact, the Italian government, while it definitely did contest the pope’s imagined sovereignty over the corridor from Rome to Ravenna, allowed him to move freely around the country. Nevertheless, for the period spanning from 1870 through 1929, no pope ever left the Vatican. Think of that: the head of the largest Church in the world refused to budge from an area that is only one-fifth of a square mile!The claim that now seems so bizarre was based on some forged documents from the seventh century that purported to show that Emperor Constantine had bestowed on Pope Sylvester I most of the Roman Empire west of Greece. That these documents were bogus had been clear for at least six centuries before the era of the prisoner-popes.
    • The pope acted like a king, too. He had an elaborate crown, called the tiara. It was shaped like a a bullet and contained three rings of jewels.
    • The pontiff’s feet seldom touched the ground. He was carted around by a dozen or so men in a sedan chair called the sedia gestatoria. Someone kept him cool with a large fan made from ostrich feathers.
    • Pope Pius X banned all music except chant from Catholic services. I suspect that he was tone deaf. I mean, the music of Mozart and Vivaldi (who was a priest) was too wild for him. The only language allowed was Latin.
    • “Modernism” was the target of the pope’s most strident injunctions. It is not easy to pinpoint exactly what he was against, but anything not covered by Thomas Aquinas was pretty much out of bounds, including the scientific method. He forced priests and professors to swear oaths that they would not promote any “modernistic” teachings.
    • The Index Librorum Prohibitorum was still going strong. If you read anything on the list, you could expect to spend eternity tormented by beings with pointed tails, goat-horns, and pitchforks.
    • Loans were taboo. Christians could neither lend to nor borrow from other Christians if interest was charged. In the eighteenth century Pope Benedict XIV had ruled that the biblical ban on usury meant that charging interest on loans was absolutely prohibited, and he also said that no one was allowed to circumvent the prohibition by some elaborate arrangement that resulted in the same effect. This was pretty much the last word until the Code of Canon Law issued in 1917 muddied the subject sufficiently so that everyone could stop paying attention to it.
  • Pope Pius X detested the Italian government and refused to deal with anyone who recognized it.

By most standards today’s Church seems old-fashioned, but Pope Pius X would be moved to rage and then tears if he saw what had become of it. His successor, Benedict XV, was cut from a different cloth. He was equally appalled by what he saw in the world, but for entirely different reasons. I will write about him when the centennial of his investiture in 1914 approaches.

Me and Karl Pierson

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Shotguns and debate are a deadly combination. Continue reading →

As details of the backstory of Karl Pierson, the eighteen-year old who brought a shotgun (as well as a machete and some Molotov Cocktails) to Arapahoe High School, are slowly released by the media, memories of my own teenage experiences have flooded my consciousness. Yesterday a television station in Denver reported that the target of his assault was his debate coach, who was also, apparently, the school’s librarian. Today a newspaper in Oregon reported that Karl had evidently just been kicked off of the team. It also said that he had qualified for and participated in the national tournament of the National Forensics League last year in extemporaneous speaking. He must have been pretty good. Only the best in each state make it to the NFL nationals.

I debated for all four years of high school. I have very vivid memories of that period. As a freshman my partner and I won our first debate against two girls from (now defunct) Lillis High School. Actually, he won the debate, or maybe the other team lost. I was so nervous that I could literally hear my knees knocking together; I doubt that I said anything that advanced our cause much. I then proceeded to lose fourteen debates in a row. Two of those debates especially stand out.

For some reason the coach sent my partner and me to a six-round varsity tournament at Smith-Cotton High in Sedalia, MO. We dropped the first five rounds. The sadists who were running the tournament then pitted us against a pair from William Chrisman High in Independence, MO. These guys were not only 5-0, but they were also the defending state champions. I vividly remember being cross-examined by one of our opponents. He tied me in knots so badly that I punted and said that my partner would explain any apparent contradictions. I may have also admitted to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. Needless to say, this performance did not enhance my partner’s assessment of my abilities.

In the other memorable round I thought that I had single-handedly defeated and, in fact, humiliated the other team. One of the members of the opposition had quoted Hugh Hefner without giving his qualifications. As the most mature member of our team, I was the one who based his entire attack on the opponent’s case on the fact that Mr. Hefner was the publisher of a naughty magazine. Frankly, I was quite certain that the offending speaker would certainly have forfeited any claim to the debate. I was not positive that he would be banned from participating in the rest of the tournament, but I assumed that some form of severe punishment was definitely in order. It never occurred to me that ignoring his other arguments might not be a wise tactic. I mean, Hugh Hefner!

I got better eventually, but I never made it to the national tournament. In fact, the only time that I was ever even on one of the top two teams at my high school was during football season of my senior year. Unfortunately for me, you see, four guys from my class (including one football player!) won the state debate tournament as juniors. I was the fifth man during both of my last two years, but I had no chance of attending the state debate tournament.

I also competed in extemp, Pierson’s specialty. In my senior year I did fairly well in that event, and I made it to the finals of the state tournament. Even then, however, I did not come close to qualifying for the nationals.

I remember having an epiphany in the preparation (they gave you a half hour or so to research and write your speech after you were given the topic) for that event at a lesser tournament. A guy from Parkview High School in Springfield, MO, confided that he usually started his speeches with a bogus quote: “Was it Coleridge who said … ?” He filled in the ellipsis with something poetic, pertinent, and British-sounding. He claimed that this was OK because he never said that Coleridge actually said anything; he just posed the question.

I was much too scrupulous to resort to this tactic. However he did inspire me to make up a pope’s name once when I had to give a speech on the effect of the papal decree of some year on modern Latin American politics. I asserted that Pope Urban had split Latin America between Spain and Portugal. I half-expected to be struck down by lightning as I was speaking or to be challenged by the judge or timekeeper, but I actually scored pretty well. (I later learned that the author of the Line of Demarcation was Pope Alexander VI, the head of the Borgia clan at the end of the fifteenth century.) I never had the chutzpah to make anything up again.

I was in debate for fifteen years. I never heard of anyone getting kicked off of my team or any other. The closest that I ever came was when Mr. Rothermick, S.J., gave me a detention for shooting imaginary baskets with my rolled-up stocking cap. If I had been kicked off of the team, I doubt that I would have walked home (I certainly had no car) and taken up my shotgun in order to exact vengeance. I would have reasoned that even if this offense did not merit the punishment, my guilt-ridden life of sin surely justified the sentence.

Yes, I owned a shotgun! It was a .410, and it hung on the wall in my bedroom as a testament to my masculinity. I remember firing it twice. Once my uncle took me out to shoot at tin cans. The other time my dad, a neighbor, and I drove out to western Kansas to hunt pheasants with some locals. I remember firing at one bird. Somebody else claimed to have hit it, but my dad for some reason always thought that my so had brought it down.

Pierson, in contrast, wielded a 12-gauge. How he managed to injure only one person with five blasts from that monster has yet to be explained. Maybe he was so embarrassed by his poor marksmanship that he turned it on himself.