Bridge is a partnership game. We've all known what it's like to bid, declare and defend like an expert, only to have our hopes for prize money, glory, women, gold points, dashed by the fool sitting opposite us. We buy them books on play, we teach them our carefully devised system (called something cutesy and alliterative like the Dunstable Diamond or Peruvian Precision), we painstakingly and methodically tell them what they did wrong on every hand in a vain attempt that some of it will sink in. But are we doing enough? With this month's Coup, we kick off a series of articles aimed at getting more out of the man, woman or other sitting opposite us.

As Rika Nonaka famously said: "I'll tell you what I don't want to be. The partner of some freak show digimon." Let's show you how.

The Concentration Coup is a completely legal strategy whose aim is to get partner to concentrate a bit more on the game. We'd obviously like to get them to concentrate for the whole session, but we have to be realistic about these things. We also know from bitter experience that simply telling them between rounds to buck up a bit isn't going to work — they'll still keep staring at the ladies (usually waitresses, caddies, lost porn-stars from the Expo in the next conference hall, occasionally even bridge players) or thinking about how their football team is doing. So what can we do? Take the following hand:

E/W Vuln Dealer S	A 10 7 3 2 Q 6 3 J 9 5 4 2			West North East South You Partner 1 Pass 1 2 2 3 ??
J 9 K 9 8 7 5 Q 7 6 3 Q 10		Q 5 4 A A K 8 4 2 J 9 7 3
	K 8 6 J 10 4 2 10 A K 8 6 5

We're playing teams and partner has been dozing off in defence lately, especially against partscores. Perhaps you ought to have a shot at 3 but nobody ever woke up by sitting there flipping dummy. You suspect that you ought to defeat 3 but can see your partner's eyes wandering already. What do you do? You double! Partner will wake up immediately and, after pondering whether he should pull, he'll be alert and ready to defeat this contract.

He leads off the A K, sees you have a doubleton and the decision point has been reached. A tired, lazy defender who's just playing against a boring partscore will play another club, hoping you'll ruff it and that something will happen. Declarer will pitch a spade loser, let you ruff and cash a spade and then trumps will be easy to pick up. Contract made. Your partner, though, defending 3X, adrenaline rushing at the thought that his light opening might be about to generate a terrible score, will see this coming, and play a low spade. You gratefully win the A and play another one to his K and then the club through promotes a trump trick for the defence. One off. The only drawback of this is that partner will now be awake enough to realise what a "terrible" double you made (if only he knew)!

This application of the Concentration Coup was discovered by Luke Porter at the Under 25s Championship at Easter 2005. He doubled a tight partscore, knowing that his partner would defend better and they consequently took it off and gained some valuable IMPs. There are several other situations, though, where the Coup can be brought in. Here's one example:

You're sitting South this time:

	A 9 7 3 2 Q 7 4 2 K Q 6 Q			North South 1 2 2 3 4 ??
	K Q 10 K 5 A J 4 2 J 9 7 3

This time it's a pairs tournament and you can see what's about to happen. Partner will declare an easy 4, take his eye off the ball and not even think about an eleventh. You need to avoid this at all costs, so we recommend you bid Blackwood! Partner responds to show one Ace and you shrug your shoulders and subside in 5. He may look at dummy a little quizzically when it comes down, but will now have a little think and decide that he probably shouldn't draw trumps straight away, which he surely would have done if you'd left him in the uninteresting 4 contract. Eleven tricks later and you've earned your middle.

An important technical point here is that you must have some Key Cards yourself to pull off this manoeuvre. Otherwise partner will bid, say, 5 showing 0 or 3. You sign off in 5 but partner, with his bare 12 count with three aces will be compelled to raise to the slam. With three Key Cards yourself, though, you'll be totally safe from any eventuality. With two it's more risky but probably ok. Prudent advanced pairs should also bear in mind that if playing sophisticated void showing responses to RKCB at the 6 level, they should first rule out the possibility of partner having a void before attempting this.

As stated before, there's little point in just telling partner to wake up when you see him dozing. He'll buck up for a minute or two, but fall back asleep fairly quickly. What you need is a big boom to stir his senses and get him right back in the game. Here are a few suggestions:

I hope some of this article has been helpful, that your ailing partner will get a bit nearer to your standards, and that maybe, just maybe, he won't be such a freak show digimon any longer. I'll leave you with some sage advice on concentration that Buratti and Lanzarotti could have done with:

"Do not concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory."
—Bruce Lee, Enter the Dragon