The scene is duplicate pairs, penultimate round, and the evening is running behind schedule. We had started brightly, but things had become a bit more mediocre as the evening progressed. Sitting West, I was dealt:
Being a bit of a luddite and still playing ACOL twos, I was all set to open this 2
, but sadly RHO opened 1
. I realised that I probably wasn't going to get my heart slam. However, the auction panned out like this:
| West | North | East | South |
|---|
| Me | | | |
| | Pass | 1 |
| X | 31 | 3 2 | 43 |
| 64 | X5 | Pass6 | Pass |
| Pass | | | |
| Notes |
|---|
| (1) | Strong raise. |
|---|
| (2) | At this point I'm wondering how many points are in this deck. |
|---|
| (3) | Yet more points in the deck. |
|---|
| (4) | There's a little bit of logic here: I'm expecting a club lead, which should give partner opportunity to draw trumps and cash the hearts, even if we don't have all the suits stopped. |
|---|
| (5) | With that "there's no way you can make this" look directed at me. |
|---|
| (6) | Thinking: Huh? Surely my partner doesn't expect me to have my bid on this auction! |
|---|
The full deal:
| |
|  | | J 10 9 7 6 5 4 |
|---|
| 10 9 |
|---|
 | 10 8 7 |
|---|
| 5 |
|---|
|
| |
Club lead, lose first round of trumps, ruff the second club, draw trumps and cash hearts — +1210 to us!
The next week we were chatting to the one other pair to bid 6
, which they also made. Their auction was even more poor than ours:
| West | North | East | South |
|---|
| | 3 | Pass |
| 4NT1 | Pass | 52 | Pass |
| 63 | AP | | |
| Notes |
|---|
| (1) | Traditional Blackwood |
|---|
| (2) | Technically "three Aces", but was explained to us as "I'm highly ashamed of this pre-empt, perhaps if I bid the final contract we can stop here." |
|---|
| (3) | We can't have five out of four Aces, but it sounds good anyway! |
|---|
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