February 2009 - 59

Winsome & Loathsome
Tales of the Trail

Count on counting
According to the magazine
Cognition, a team led by Edward
Gibson, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT, went to remote
northwestern Brazil to study the
language of the Piraha, a tribe that
speaks an Amazonian tongue spoken
by only 300 people. They found that
the Piraha use language to express
relative quantities such as "some"
and "more," but not precise numbers.
"It is often assumed that counting
is an innate part of human cognition,"
said Prof. Gibson, "but here is a
group that does not count. They could
learn to count, but it's not useful in
their culture, so they've never picked
it up."
HELLO-O! Professor, sir ... you
folks didn't have to risk the jungles
of Brazil to find a group that doesn't
count. You could have saved a bundle
and gotten free lunch by visiting
your local duplicate club. By and
large, they, too, have not picked up
on counting. The difference is that in
our bridge culture, counting is useful.
Scratch that - it's essential.
Mark this: To become a good
bridge player, one must count everything. That means distribution, high
cards, tricks - everything - and use
every clue provided by the bidding,
play, leads, signals and fall of the
cards. Regardless of your evaluation
system, when the dummy comes
down, count the points it holds and
add them to the number of points in
your hand - especially on defense.
That number will sometimes provide
a key to the winning play.
Every year at our annual bridge
retreat, the legendary heady Eddie
Kantar and I emphasize the importance of counting. We touch on it
virtually every day. To those of you
February 2009

who will be with us in Petaluma in a
few weeks, here's a head start on the
first hand of the week. It's a counting
hand, of course, and one of my favorites. You are South and pick up:
A J 10 8 7 3 K 6 5 J 5 8 6.
Your left-hand opponent deals and
opens 1NT (15-17), followed by
two passes. I ask the group, "Would
you balance?" "Yes," they invariably
respond, and when asked "Why?"
they explain that RHO passed, so
partner is marked with some values.
Good thinking. To that I add sardonically that taking partner off lead is
also a good idea. Partners never lead
the right thing without some guidance (apologies to Aileen Osofsky's
Goodwill Committee).
True to form, your irrationally exuberant partner raises you to 3, even
though you had already bid most of
his cards. All pass and West leads the
Q. Dummy hits with:
Q 9 2 A 8 4 2 Q 7 K J 9 2.
You peer at dummy and sneer at
partner. Looks like five losers. But,
wait! When the opponent leads, at
trick one, you immediately know the
location of every high card in the
deck! Does that help?
Remember the auction? West
opened 1NT. What was led? The Q.
Dummy has 12 high-card points, you
have 9. That's 21. The deck has 40, so
the opponents have 19. Well, let's see.
I now ask the group how many points
the opener has in spades? They
quickly reply, "Three!" In hearts (he
led the Q)? Confidently, "Three!"
Diamonds? They've got the rhythm
now, "Seven!"
I pause. An uncomfortable moment
of silence ensues and someone vol-

Zeke Jabbour
jabbour@comcast.net

unteers that he does not have seven
points. I zero in on this person like
the little despot investigating what I
had for lunch. "Why not?" I inquire
in my best prosecutorial voice.
"Because if he had both the ace and
king, he probably would have led one
of them."
An epiphany! Teachers live for
moments like this. If we transfer a
diamond honor to East, both the A
and Q must be in the West hand
to reach the requisite 15 points. We
know essentially where every big shot
in the deck is hanging out!
It's not over. They still have to use
the intelligence they have garnered
by listening to the bidding, noting
the lead and counting the points.
Declarer must win the opening lead
in hand and, before all else, lead a
club toward dummy. When West wins
the A and leads the J, won in
dummy, a trump is led to declarer's
ace (disdaining the losing finesse)
and declarer's last club is led, with
impunity, to dummy's jack. The K
is cashed to shed declarer's losing
heart.
3 is now in the bag. Even 4
has become a remote swindle away.
See if you can figure out how.
Meanwhile, keep counting on counting. It can be akin to magic.
r
59
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of February 2009
