Actually, it was North/South that had the misunderstanding on this week's deal, but that sort of thing doesn't usually stop us from using a good quote out of context. Sometimes a hand gets played which just screams Poor Bridge at you and you can't wait to get home and spew forth some sarcasm and send it in to poorbridge.com. This week's deal had this quality in droves, as both people involved saw fit to send their contribution to the editor. And why, we thought, should we publish just one or the other when we can publish both at the same time?

Bryony and I hadn't played together a great deal before but had had some success on the last occasion and I was looking forward to giving the Swiss Pairs at Harrogate a shot with her. After some discussion we agreed to play her own system as I'm a firm believer that the stronger player should make the weaker player feel as comfortable as possible at the table, and got ourselves into the mood for playing cards by having a go at the pre-congress events, albeit with different partners. The results in these smaller events are largely irrelevant; what's important is that we were warmed up and ready to go.

The early rounds went well — once I'd learned to compensate for Bryony's underbidding, we were hitting the contracts with reasonable precision — and we were quickly catapulted to the top of the field. A couple of indifferent results saw us slip some but by the dinner break on the Saturday we were still well above average and in with a good shot of a high placing. Some beers left me relaxed and in the zone for the final session.

This was my hand on this week's deal and ain't she a beauty? My first consideration is to open 2 but I tend to dislike opening big two-suited hands with the partnership's strong bid. It's certainly worth a game force, but if the bidding gets back to me at 4, I'll find myself in an awkward position unless I start showing my suits straight away with a 1 opening. And besides, I'd already proved once in the weekend that I didn't know what I was doing in our partnership's 2 auctions! Bryony responds 1 and I bid a natural and game forcing 3. Bryony's 4 cue-bid is good news for me as it shows a club control and some diamond support. Thoughts of grand slams immediately come to mind, but are dissolved somewhat when my right-hand opponent doubles 4. I start to worry about two quick club tricks for the opposition if partner's cue bid is an unsupported King. My solution to this problem is to pass, hoping that Bryony can redouble with first round control, but when she instead bids 4, I'm despondent about the small slam. I have a good think about trying to engineer the auction so that partner can be declarer in 6NT, but when this proves fruitless I reluctantly sign-off in 5. Rather unexpectedly, Bryony hasn't had enough of the hand and bids 6! Well, there's no way she can have solid spades to bid 4 so I don't really have much option other than to bid 6NT and hope for the best.

Despite living in Yorkshire this was the first year I'd played in the Harrogate congress. My partner for the Swiss Pairs was to be poorbridge.com's very own Michael Clark. We had only played together a couple of times before but an argument about system was avoided when I delicately pointed out the weaknesses in Michael's preferred system and easily convinced him that mine was superior. After a very successful game in the pre-congress pairs with Steve Hurst I was raring to go for the main event. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Michael. I wanted to believe his protests that the dismal performance in the pre-congress event was all down to bad luck.

Anyway, we got off to a great start. I quickly learned to adjust my game to compensate for Michael's overbidding and everything was going swimmingly. Then came dinner where we ate at a local pub. I became mildly concerned by the number of beers Michael consumed; it was going to provide an extra challenge for me in the final session. This was my hand on this week's deal:

Michael, predictably, kicks off with 1 and I respond the mandatory 1. When the 3 rebid appears I start thinking about the possibility of a slam. But which one? 6 if pard has a fifth diamond, 6 if he's got some good support for me there. 4th suit forcing should take care of these enquiries so I pop 4 on the table. The double by my LHO doesn't worry me too much since I have the A and it's given pard a perfect chance to show his shape precisely — his pass surely denies a sixth heart, a fifth diamond or a third spade. I now bid a non-forcing 4 showing six spades and slam interest if pard has a suitable hand and pass the decision over to him. The 5 cue-bid he produces is all I need to hear so I jump to 6. Michael converts to 6NT but surely that's just because it's matchpoints...

The full layout is as shown above. I get a club lead and am very happy to see partner had the A after all. Unfortunately, it takes out my only dummy entry straight away and now my only real chance to bring the diamond suit in and score up 12 tricks is to find the K doubleton with West. But wait! If this very lucky position does exist then everybody in the obvious 6 contract will make 13 tricks too and still score better than me. So, going for broke, I win the A and cash the A, pitching my losing club and setting up a load of tricks for the defence. I hold my breath and hook the diamond, but as you can see it loses and the contract now goes six off. Ah well, it's only another bottom, partner.

In these situations, I find it's prudent to keep one's own counsel. I may have wanted to tell Bryony exactly what I thought of her bidding and what she really should have done but it would have been very bad form at the table and would have needlessly distracted her from the task ahead. And anyway, why say anything to her face when I can write about her for Poor Bridge of the Week?

The less said about the play, the better. Suffice to say, when the dust settled I was jotting down -600 on my scorecard. Pard was sitting across the table looking quiet and contrite so there didn't seem to be a need to let him know then everything he'd done wrong — I can just write about him in Poor Bridge of the Week instead!

You may be wondering why the contract was six off. I was wondering that myself while looking at the hand record. What actually happened was, after the spades were cashed, I just told West that she could have all her clubs and I'd have the rest. "How many clubs have you got?" I asked. "Four", she said, thinking I meant how many she started with. The amusing thing is that -600 was worth an entire 3 matchpoints. Lord knows what we'd have got for -500!

"It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree. For if, by ill luck, people understood each other, they would never agree."
—Charles Baudelaire