The Lederer Memorial Trophy is run annually at the Young Chelsea, for teams of four that have been specially invited. Usually the teams are either major trophy holders past and present (Gold Cup, Spring Foursomes), international teams (England, Ireland) or just full of big names. Having agreed to help with the table monitoring this year I was expecting to kibitz some great players with poor bridge the last thing on my mind. Little did I know what was about to unfold in front of me.

Sitting down in a corner chair between two protagonists I saw the following cards extracted from the board:

With the vulnerability at Game All and West dealer the auction unfolded as follows:

The weak jump overcall by East is somewhat conservative seeing as it could be made with one less spade and a far less robust suit — 3 would be a more normal action. This sets South a small bidding problem — too weak to bid 3 directly he decides to make a negative double showing four hearts (I would prefer a pass or, if feeling really aggressive, a stretch to 2NT). This is music to his partner's ears and holding four hearts and a good hand he duly jumps to 4, expecting to play in a 4-4 fit. South passes and hopes for the best. West is unconvinced by the proceedings and doubles this. This is passed back to South. Now holding one less trump than you have promised and no sensible place to run to you might try to cut your losses and play in 4X? Not a bit of it — South now runs to partner's first suit - from the 4-3 fit at the four level to what might only be a 4-2 fit at the five level! West doubles this again on principle and this time it floats.

Now a heart lead to the ace and a heart back for a ruff holds the contract to eleven tricks. However it is not usually a good idea to lead through partner's defensive strength when it seems declarer is going to need to do that anyway himself and the K is not unreasonably led instead. A double finesse and 3-3 break in trumps and the Q popping up on the second round leads to this appalling contract rolling home with an overtrick!

So there you have it — a very conservative pre-empt, a negative double without enough hearts, a penalty double jostling the opponents into a different cold doubled game (on a 3-3 break and double finesse in trumps and finding the Q) and the wrong lead (ok the best lead is not obvious) giving away the overtrick, all produced by players who should really have known better. Poor enough?