March 2025 - 7

IN Box
Bulldog update
The Junior News column in the
January issue about college programs
omitted an important one:
The bridge club at the University of
Georgia is alive and very active.
The club has weekly meetings for
fellowship, discussion, bridge play
and occasional lessons. Last year,
two of the members, Kunal Vorha
and Brennan Easton, participated in
the World University Mind Sports in
Uganda. The club has had matches
against the team from Georgia Tech
and had a second-place finish at
the collegiate invitational last year,
hosted by Georgia Tech, where several
schools participated. The club is
anticipating making a trip to Atlanta
for the Georgia Tech Invitational
again this year with at least three
teams. Several members of the club
have enthusiastically participated in
local bridge club games and traveled
to ACBL sectionals, regionals and
NABCs.
The faculty sponsor is Matt Just,
a member of the math department.
Dr. Just also taught a credit class
last year that was based on the math
involved in bridge. This may be a first
time such a course has been taught at
a major university.
BRUCE MILLER
Athens GA
Dolly math
In Simon Cocheme's humorous
article in the December issue
( " Simon Says " ), he stated that the
odds of holding a " Dolly " were about
1 in 1000. Cocheme defined a Dolly
as a hand containing a suit with the
exact spot cards of 9-5-2 or, better,
in the rearranged form 9-2-5 to
match the title of the famous Dolly
Parton song " Nine to Five. " Several
knowledgeable math pros wrote us
to say that the formal probability is
actually about 1 in 250. Here's one:
We determine the number of Dolly
hands by counting, step by step, the
number of ways to build a hand with
a Dolly. First, we have four ways to
choose a Dolly (one for each suit).
Next, we need to choose three cards
in that suit, precisely 9-2-5. These
can be selected in any order, but
there is one unique choice among all
the possible three-card selections.
Finally, we need to fill out the hand
with 10 cards chosen from the other
three suits. This means there are
4 x 1 x 39C10 = 2,542,981,584 Dollies.
Almost. Any hand that happens
to have two Dolly suits, say hearts
and spades, has been counted twice
above, once for having the spade
Dolly, and again for the heart Dolly.
We want it counted only once, so we
correct the overcount by subtracting
the number of double-Dolly hands.
Let's build a double-Dolly. First,
there are six ways to choose a pair of
suits. Then one way to select the first
9-2-5 holding, and again, one way
to choose the second 9-2-5 holding.
Finish by filling out with seven cards
from the other two suits. Thus, we
have 6 x 1 x 1 x 26C7 = 3,946,800; this
is subtracted from the total above,
leaving 2,539,034,784.
Great. Single- and double-Dolly
hands are counted just right. Oh,
but what about a triple-Dolly? Such
a hand was added three times in
the first paragraph and then subtracted
three times in the second
paragraph, so it is no longer included
in the count. We need to add it
back to get the final count. To build
a triple-Dolly, we first select three
suits for Dollies in four ways. Select
the three-card holding 9-2-5 in
1 x 1 x 1 ways and fill out with four
cards chosen from the last suit.
We get 6 x 1 x 1 x 1 x 13C4, which is
2,860, to add to our total, giving us
2,539,037,644.
Whew. To get the probability
of holding a Dolly, divide by the
total number of bridge hands,
which is 52C13. This probability
is 0.003998399, which is 1 out of
250.100. You are likely to hold one
about once in every nine club games.
DR. ALLEN SCHWENK
Western Michigan University
Portage MI
Law 16B for players and
BBO directors
From my experience as a club
recorder and as a player, it is clear to
me that one of the most violated laws
of duplicate bridge is 16B, mainly
dealing with unauthorized information
from long breaks in tempo.
I believe that in large BBO pairs
games, monitoring this violation can
be automated.
Consider this example from a
recent online pairs game. With both
sides vulnerable, you hold:
sQ 10 8 7 6 h9 6 dQ 10 8 7 c5 4.
The bidding at our table went:
West (Me) North East South
Pass
Pass
3h(2)
?
Pass 2NT(1) Pass
Pass 3s(3) Pass
(1) 20-21 HCP
(2) Spades
(3) East hesitated for at least 20
seconds, clearly thinking about a
super-accept to 3NT or 4s. (This
partnership never opens notrump
with a singleton.)
Law 16B1 says " Any extraneous
information from partner that might
suggest a call or play is unauthorized.
This includes remarks, questions,
replies to questions, unexpected Alerts
or failures to Alert, unmistakable
hesitation, unwonted speed, special
emphasis, tone, gesture, movement
or mannerism. (a) A player may not
choose a call or play that is demonstrably
suggested over another by
unauthorized information if the other
call or play is a logical alternative.
March 2025 | Bridge Bulletin |
7
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March 2025

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