Around a year ago I played in — nay, won — the 'Regular Masters' with Michael Clark. A poorbridge article from that event can be found here. This year, having failed to achieve a ranking anything higher than Regular, I returned to defend the Regular Masters title with a new partner — Luke Porter. As expected, poor bridge was in abundance. There are a couple of corkers at the end of this article but let me start with a little faux pas of my own — just to show I'm not biased...

Over 2NT I hesitated, unsure if 2NT was natural or club support. I took it as natural and Luke ethically had to pass my raise to 3NT. Before South could lead my partner pointed out that 2NT should be alerted as it was showing club support and not natural. The director was called, who asked South if it would make a difference to his final bid. "It most certainly would" he replied (I found him a little obnoxious if truth be told). Anyway, the TD allowed him to change his final pass if he wished. He did, and changed it to a rather insufficient 3! The TD disallowed this, 3NT was the final contract, and the defence cashed the obvious first nine tricks thus making 3NT themselves. Not a success.

Right — let's crack on with the first of two awesome pieces of bidding. Here's a quiz for you... you hold:

Love all, the auction to you (playing a strong NT) is:

West	North	East	South
	1	1	??

What would you bid at this point?

A popular choice would be to make a negative double as you hold four hearts. An alternative sensible choice would be to bid 1NT as you have a triple spade stop. Our hero of the auction chose to bid 2. To add insult to injury his partner passed this bid! Here was the full hand:

The play was fairly routine, for the defence anyway. The T was led and taken by A, with K then cashed (showing a doubleton). 8 (negative attitude for the suit) returned and ruffed, followed by a club ruff and second spade ruff. A diamond exit was taken by declarer on table and he desperately tried a trump. The K held, a further spade ruff ensued and the diamond and trump ace cashed. -200 the hard way and, like the hand above, the defence made the contract within the first nine tricks.

Finally we have this gem of an auction.

2 was a multi showing one of: a) Strong balanced, b) Acol Two in a minor, or c) Weak Two in a major. Quite what the 6 rebid was at the table we don't know. 2 was 'pass or correct', implying preference for hearts. Not only was the auction a shock for us, but the sight of dummy a shock too.

So, South's 6 bid was based on a balanced 20 count. You can see that he landed on his feet when his partner showed up with a 12 count. But what was the preference for hearts all about? Anyway, the astute among you will notice that both 7 and 7NT are cold. But this is poorbridge.com and we like to give you more value than that!

The opening lead was a small club to the king and ace, making thirteen tricks trivial. Declarer continued by drawing four rounds of trumps, starting with the king thus holding himself to twelve tricks when the hearts are 5-0 offside. He then cashed the two top diamonds and continued a low spade off table to the eight in hand. Luke, rather bemused, gladly took his singleton jack.

"Oh, I can't believe I just did that. Sorry partner, I can make thirteen. Making twelve."
"Well, I'm cashing my good trump..."
"Oh. Ok, making eleven then."
"Er, now I continue with a good diamond to my partner who cashes another..."

We establish that declarer is actually three off — I had pitched a diamond on the run of the hearts, not realising it would be needed. As expected, it gained us all the match points anyway.

Despite my best efforts (see the first hand above), Luke and I managed to emerge victorious. I somewhat suspect that without such a good partner and such generous opponents I wouldn't have retained the biscuit tray. I'm sure it will come in handy.