poorbridge.com

There are moments in bridge, regrettably few, when it feels as though I can see all four hands, and the table belongs exclusively to me. This article isn't about one of those times. This is about one of the times when I slunk into the playing area wishing I were still in bed. This article is about Yorkshire's foray into the qualifying weekend of the inter-county teams of eight championship, the Tollemache.

Now of all the events in the bridge calendar, the Tolly is my least favourite. The event is played over a sports hall in Kettering, and someone has quite obviously recently died in the ladies loos. I don't know how it is that no-one has found the corpse yet, because none of the doors lock properly, and the loos don't flush either, so there are not exactly many places to hide dead bodies. The meal break is nicely timed to give players a choice of two bad options (i) it is too long to stay in to eat the horrible food at the Sports Hall but (ii) it is too short to find somewhere decent to eat. The format is designed to confuse — we play in half matches so I never knew who we were playing or the state of the match. The form of scoring is barbaric. There is just nothing nice about playing in the Tolly apart from my team-mates.

Perhaps all this negativity got what it deserved. This weekend was in fact the mother of all bad weekends. I played horribly and came away with far too many tales suitable for this column. Misplay the hands with me (starring me butchering the timing of a hand), No stepping stone (starring me eschewing a double squeeze for a stepping stone that didn't work), Double bubble toil and trouble (starring me stopping off to take a penalty double at the one level when we were nearly cold for a slam) and You only pre-empt twice (starring me bidding again after having pre-empted). But my particular favourite hand does involve my Kentish opponents, who were clearly having just as bad a time as me. I hope they forgive me, but we did conspire to produce an opportunity for a truly great poor bridge article.

Both Vuln
Dealer N
SQ J 4 2
H10 6 3
DJ 9 6 3
C9 7

WestNorthEastSouth
Pass3S4H
AP

S3
HK 4
DA K 10 8 7 5
CK J 8 2
DIR
SA K 9 8 7 6
H5 2
D2
CQ 10 5 4
S10 5
HA Q J 9 8 7
DQ 4
CA 6 3

The auction needs some explanation. The East hand opened the hand 3S. Who knows why? Perhaps he was wondering about why he had failed to buy his daughter some new navy blue school knickers for the fourth weekend in succession. That's what I was thinking about when I bid 4H grumpily.

But if you stop to think for a nanosecond, and try to construct hands where 4H makes opposite a passed partner, you would realise that it is a truly grotesque bid. The death holding of two small spades just shouts out that bidding is wrong WRONG WRONG. It deserved to be doubled. This is what pre-empts are for — to lure the unwary (or the deeply dozy) into taking the wrong action. West's pass is totally inexplicable. I meantersay, his partner has made a vulnerable pre-empt in second, so really should have some spades and he has both minors sewn up and a likely trump trick. So why no double?

The Man of Kent (he may have been a Kentish man) led S3. I surveyed the dummy and remembered to count my tricks. I only had seven of them. Eight if the heart finesse works which seems unlikely even were I able to get to dummy. Unfortunately both my spades are higher than LHO's, so the man on my right couldn't be deceived even if he wanted to be. He won SK, and things started to go downhill for the defence when he played back S9 showing an entry in diamonds after his partner had ruffed.

LHO ruffed obediently, then selected the D10 to play back, playing for his partner to have either a void diamond or the queen. You will observe he had neither, and I was slightly surprised to find myself win the trick with DQ. Hurrah. I had climbed up to eight tricks. I thought they could probably make nine tricks in spades, so in the peculiar form of scoring in vogue at the Tolly, I would only lose a couple of IMPs. For me this represents success.

Idly and for lack of anything better to do, I cash HA. The King appears from my left. Up to nine tricks now! I remember to draw the last trump, another minor triumph. Is it time to concede down one? Well there is still the hope of the spade position yielding a trick and it is slightly frustrating that I can't ruff one losing club and throw the other losing club on a spade without first losing a club. If you see what I mean.

So I played my low diamond out of hand towards the dummy, more in hope of the defence randomly pulling out a wrong card than any real expectation. My LHO wins and the position is now:-

Both Vuln
Dealer N
SQ J
H10
DJ 9
C9 7
S
H
DA 8 7
CK J 8 2
DIR
SA 8 7
H
D
CQ 10 5 4
S
HJ 9 8 7
D
CA 6 3

I have lost a spade trick, a spade ruff and a diamond trick. I have to win the rest which is clearly impossible. However LHO has gone into the longest trance imaginable — enough time in fact for me to remember that the cat needed some more dry catfood. I stop woolgathering and try to compose my features into looking like a gal with CQ. After all, only a lunatic would bid four hearts without CQ.

Some considerable time later, LHO wakes us all up by playing a card. We all stare at it in disbelief because it was D7. I score DJ, take the ruffing spade finesse, re-enter dummy with H10 and throw my second club loser on a top spade.

So that's how seven tricks turned into ten without the aid of a revoke. The trouble is, whenever you play poor bridge, or receive undeserved gifts from poor bridge, there is a hideous and entirely involuntary impulse to roll on the floor laughing. ROFL. You ought to coin a phrase for this, and the internal haemorrhaging resulting from quelling said impulse.