You know the score: summer, a weekend, far too hot to be doing anything, and yet you stay couped up in a room with lots of other people all in the rather fruitless quest for green points. The recent GP events at Risley attracted the usual suspects and the usual clutch of poorbridge.

Here's two vignettes to give you a flavour.

Matchpoints. E/W Vuln. North dealt and passed. East passed and South was in the spotlight:

Third in hand? Favourable? It's really rather unfair of the computer to present us with this hand. Or to be more precise, present a junior with this hand. One opened 1 and passed out partner's 1 response and got a plus score. But what do these juniors know? Who wants +80 at matchpoints? The real man bids the 'filthy' 2. Let's look at the whole hand to see what happens:

2 passed round to East who made a take out double which West left in and led a club. North complimented himself on not raising diamonds; South was happy to agree.

South won the club in hand and played a diamond towards dummy and West won the queen. Another club was ruffed in hand and South played a second trump (the 'idiot coup', article coming soon) West rose with the king which was felled by the ace. West returned a heart to the king and then a heart went to the queen. A spade was won by West who played a final trump, but a spade trick was established and declarer had eight tricks (three trumps, two hearts, two clubs and a spade) for +180.

Filthy opening. Gorgeous result.

"Enough matchpoints. That's not a test of real skill!" I hear you cry.

Swiss teams. From the final match of the day.

With E/W vulnerable, East passed. South opened 4 and at the first table West passed and North bid a direct 6. With the spade and club positions being favourable South made thirteen tricks for +1010.

Later, South was in bullish mood and decreed: "Plus 1010. I reckon we're bulletproof. We can't lose IMPs on that board." "What about the grand? We could lose 11 IMPs," said North. "And back on planet earth, we can't lose IMPs."

When they scored up, South found he was right and oppo hadn't bid the grand, but he'd still lost IMPs. 10 IMPs to be exact. How do you lose 10 IMPs on the board? Like this — South opened 4, which West doubled to show values ("completely routine"). North redoubled which ended the auction. Very shortly West was writing down 1480 in the out column. Poorbridge worthy? Could be.

Eagle-eyed viewers will have noted that the 9 8 6 5 4 holding appeared in both deals where the opposition did something silly. We at poorbridge.com feel, on the strength of these two hands of "evidence", that this holding must have mystical powers — after all it is a straight flush (or bacon 2 opening) but with the beer card missing. While we are perfectly comfortable with jumping to this conclusion, we'd be keen to hear from any of our readers with experience of the 9 8 6 5 4. Why not send your stories to xebon@poorbridge.com?