BRIDGE IDIOTS AND LUNATICS: DO YOU KNOW THE DIFFERENCE ?....... ( Article by Dr. John )

• In bridge you often hear players berating their bumbledog partners as either "idiots" or "lunatics". But hold on there....do they...and for matter do you.....know the difference between an idiot and a lunatic ? The boundaries that separate the two can be horribly blurred, and in some instances they widely overlap. So this is why I have decided to spend some time looking into the problem of defining and distinguishing these two over-used terms.
• Let's take the following hand where declarer is in 4S and receives an opening club lead. In dummy he sees: x ....Qxx....AKxx.....KQ109x..... opposite his: AQ109xxxx....Jx....x....AJx..Taking the first trick in dummy with the queen ( pitching his own jack ), he plays off two top diamonds to throw away a losing heart. Now, providing spades break no worse than 3-2 all he can lose is 1 heart and two spade tricks at most. However, at trick 4 declarer elects to take the spade finesse with the queen that loses to the king. Back comes a club which is ruffed by the RHO ! This is followed by a heart to the Ace for another oh-no club ruff to come. The contract is one off.....and that is a classic example of IDIOCY. All declarer needed to do was to play a spade to the Ace and another, happy to concede two trumps to the defence...,.. but not three.
• Lunacy on the other hand smacks of the total absence of any reasoning and/or logic. For example, take a player who is sitting over dummy's Q108 with KJ9, clearly well placed to make two tricks in that suit, even if declarer holds the Ace. But overcome by a lethal combination of desperation and fantasy thinking, the madman will come to an unfathomable conclusion the time is right to boldly play the king. If later asked as to what on earth possessed him to do such a crazy thing, the answer might well be as follows: " Well, partner we needed two tricks to defeat the contract, and this required you to hold the Ace ". Now reasoning like that certainly helps us to understand the meaning of lunacy.
• However in bidding, the boundaries between idiocy and lunacy are a little more obvious. For instance, how would you define a player who initially passes ( green against red ) on Axx....Jx...Kxx......Axxxx, and then after watching his opponents confidently sail into 4S, decides now is the time to bid his club suit .......at the 5 level !! This of course goes off 5 for a whopping 1100 penalty. Asked to defend his action, the inevitable nonsense pours forth. " I didn't expect partner to have a Yarborough.....and I thought 3 off for minus 500 would be a good save." This kind of thinking in my view is insane for a multitude of reasons. The obvious one being 4S could easily go down if partner holds no more than 2 clubs, and the diamond king is favourably sitting over the Ace. Moreover, should partner have a real shortage in clubs, with the Ace of diamonds wrong, 3 tricks might be the maximum possible... opposite a totally useless yarborough. Perhaps, it is worth mentioning at this point that leading psychiastrists agree that both these terms are not mutually exclusive.
• Thankfully, only a very tiny minority of club players are ever like to be correctly diagnosed as idiots or lunatics. The truth is that out there in the world of bridge, there are thousands upon thousands of players , who fall into the category of MUDDLE-HEADED WOMBATS. These are people to whose logical thought processes regularly short-circuit. Their heads are lost in confusion and indecision, often pre-occupied with other unresolved issues and problems in their life. They seem to operate in a fog of uncertainly, allowing irrational ideas to muddy the clear waters of logical reasoning. Indeed, many of them have a condition known as " DEMENTIA PRAECOX " . This affliction is neither idiocy or lunacy, but it crosses the boundaries of both. Sufferers develop a thought that what they are about to do will be wrong, but despite this gift of insight they go ahead with this thought anyway. Immediately afterwards, they will all be quick to apologise to their partners : " Sorry, I never really meant to do that....I just don't know what came over me." Indeed, research has shown that their ability to talk themselves into making the wrong bid, or play of the cards, is based on the absurd notion that the less likely an outcome, then the more likely it is to occur. Tragically, for the muddle-headed wombat with dementia praecox, the battle between logic and inverted logic will rage on forever within his tortured mind.....
• So unless you are an expert in this psychiatric field, capable of diagnosing idiocy and lunacy correctly, I would advise you to stay clear of using such terms. If partner does something which defies logic or beggars belief, it would be much safer....and more correct....to use this alternative label.