poorbridge.com

We arrived at the local bridge club on Wednesday to a rather unusual sight. The club uses the community hall of a local army barracks where we have around eight solid tables backed up with half a dozen fold-up bridge tables. The army chose to get rid of their solid tables and the bridge club pointed out that further fold-up tables would be required. The army duly purchased replacement tables, in use for the first time that night.

Now, I have just looked up the standard size of a bridge table on the internet which took all of 30 seconds. 30 inches x 30 inches (2.5 feet square) seems to be common give or take an inch or two — and what's a couple of inches between friends? The tables the army bought... 3 feet x 6 feet! Er, right. So North has to pass the board to East for them to remove the cards, then over to West, and playing dummy lengthways is certainly more interesting. Obviously the army have a different concept to bridge than we do.

Anyway, enough about the poor tables, how about some poor bridge? I'm sitting North (deal rotated for convenience — if only the table had been rotated too), dealer East, E/W vulnerable.

SJ 10 6 2
HQ 5
D9 7
CA Q 10 8 2

In an uncontested auction partner opened 1D and I decided my 9 count wasn't worth a 2/1 so contented myself with 1S. Partner rebid 1NT, 15-17 balanced. Most people with a 9 count and a good 5 card suit would raise to 3NT without passing go, building a fort or enhancing their share portfolio. For some reason I decided to only invite, turned down by partner who played in 2NT. Actually why do I keep saying partner instead of Karen? Naming and shaming is what we're about!

Here's the full deal:


SJ 10 6 2
HQ 5
D9 7
CA Q 10 8 2
SQ 9 5
HA J 9 8
DQ 5 3
C6 4 3
DIR
SK 8 7
H10 7 6 4 2
DJ 8 2
CK 5
SA 4 3
HK 3
DA K 10 6 4
CJ 9 7

As you can see the wimpish bidding paid off — the club finesse is wrong so only eight tricks are there. West led H8, the fourth highest of her longest and strongest suit — something that I strongly advocate [ — Ed]. Karen correctly rose with HQ on table, crossed to hand with a top diamond and took the losing club finesse.

You might think the defence would cash four hearts and declarer claim the remainder. Let's see what actually happened. East returned a heart to declarer's HK and West's HA. When West cashed HJ dummy pitched a spade and East "unblocked" HT. Genius! It didn't help declarer as the ellusive ninth trick still wasn't there. The H9 was cashed and West switched to a low spade going to the SJ, SK and SA. Declarer cashed clubs coming to this three-card ending:


S10
H
D9
C8
SQ
H
DQ 5
C
DIR
S
H6
DJ 8
C
S4
H
DK 10
C

A genuine automatic squeeze had emerged should one of the defenders hold DQJ and SQ, though as we can see this isn't the case. When Karen cashed C8 East pitched H6, Karen S4 and the action was on West. A quick count of the hand would tell her that declarer must hold DK and, as Karen rejected an invite, there was a fair chance that her partner held DJ. An obvious diamond pitch? Not a bit of it, West pitched SQ making dummy's ST good.

So, the contract made nine tricks. No? Ah, Karen seemed to be oblivious to the now boss ST and played a diamond to the king, making just eight tricks. This justified my invite I reckon! In the post mortem I apologised for not bidding game, even though it goes a trick off. East apologised to her partner saying that she should have unblocked the heart at trick one. Er, what?