Our quartet of Padma, Prabha, Kingo and Kaushik were watching the breaking news on the TV and listening to the sad story of a child having fallen into a bore well and efforts were on to bring the child out safely. Padma and Prabha went in unison, “Oh my God. Please do something and save the child”. Kingo blurted “Safety is always compromised in India – an electrician came for repair at my house and he did not have a proper plug and was inserting two open wires in the plug holes. They concretized a road and the edges were a vertical drop of 1 foot – if someone just misses the edge, they will have a bad fall”.
Kaushik was pensive and said the Safety rules also apply to Bridge. We call them safety plays – things like handling a suit combination properly, finessing into the safe hand or an avoidance of the dangerous opponent. I recollect reading an interview with Zia and he said that every bridge player must revise two important things before any major event – system convention with partner and handling suit combinations.
Padma checked with everyone if they knew how to calculate percentages for various suit combinations. She elaborated that there are 2n ways the cards can be distributed where n is the number cards with opponents. Once you have written all the combinations, it is matter of trying our various plays and seeing which gives you the best percentage to make the required number of tricks
Prabha said the safety play in Bridge also depended on number of tricks you need in the suit to make the contract. If you hold AJXX opposite K9XX and you need 4 tricks, playing K and finessing the Queen is the best option but if you are OK with 3 certain tricks playing A and low to the 9 will give you 3 certain tricks. Kingo nodded said he learnt something new today – the play depends on number of tricks you need in the suit.
Kaushik added another common safety play is to do an unnecessary duck when you are short of entries to the hand with a long suit to cater for a bad break
There was loud applauds and clapping near the television. The local authorities managed to get the child out of the bore well and all was well. It was getting late and everyone took their bags and left the club.
Tailpiece: Goofy was contemplating about safety for dogs. Helmets to protect from stones thrown at them? Or Dog crossings like Pedestrian crossing? Kingo, pacified him saying that he should only worry about things that he can control and not about uncontrollable items
Sarangapani Club is a weekend hangout of 4 budding youngsters just out management school and trying to build careers in Information Technology Mumbai. Read link for details https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eXKsYJw7BDX-pegg53Acy4k8BVb_xzK7/view?usp=sharing
