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PLENTY OF FUN WITH POINTLESS HANDS.

Welcome back to stories of a night’s bridge at the Akarana Bridge Club. After a gap of two months, it was nice to be back. It felt like a good practice for my first up-coming Rubber Bridge match in the National event as along with other West players, I averaged 8.25 points per hand over the 28 boards. It was just as well we were playing Teams!

You can get a lot of enjoyment from so little. On two successive hands, I held very little indeed as the only thing that prevented them from being Yarborough’s was the presence of a “10” in each case. Let’s relive the excitement of Boards 16 and 17.

After the joy of seeing partner make 2 on Board 15, I picked up the following on Board 16:

10743

 764

86

9632

Ruffing value and a sort of honour! However, we will observe the bidding through the eyes of the North player, Peter Hensman. He held:

 A5

 QT93

 T2

QJT74

and made what might otherwise be a rather mundane board rather exciting. He saw and took part in the following sequence:

 

West	North	East	South
Pass	Pass	Pass	2
Pass	2	Pass	2NT
Pass	3	Pass	3
Pass	?

 

2 was a Standard 2 way Multi while 2 showed game interest in a heart game if partner had a weak 2 in that suit but less than an opening hand. 2NT was 20-22 balanced and after Peter’s 3 enquiry, his partner, John O’Connor, showed a 5 card spade suit. What would your next bid as North be?

You might think that 3NT would be a good idea but Peter had other ideas. Over to Peter:

“29 – 31 HCP total!  What to do?  Those 2 10’s look good.  Good club suit, possible diamond ruff.  Rather than make a decision, let’s investigate. Bother.  Hasn’t simplified the decision much.  In session 1, there were 3 slam contracts with only 30 HCPs which we didn’t find. Is this my chance to redeem myself?  Heart in mouth 5 invite bid which partner took to 6.” These were the four hands:

 

East led the A and thanks to John’s singleton club (how mean!), Peter’s contract was still alive. With hearts 3-3, it all came down to the Q. It was in the hand Peter needed but appeared a round too soon from his point of view. In Peter’s words: “That miserable T in West’s hand proved the setting trick.”

“Where was the excitement in all this for West apart from being the spoiler” you might ask? With North surely marked on the bidding with a three card spade suit, the disappointment of partner not producing the Q on the first round of the suit turned to pure elation when he produced it one round later, when the contract had from the West seat seemed cold!. Bridge is full of such feelings of disappointments and moments of pure elation!

Interestingly, only a club lead defeats 6. On any other lead, the club will disappear on the 4^th round of hearts after three rounds of spades. Peter was unlucky that the East hand rather than the West one was on lead. West could shut his eyes and select a card at random! A club would not be obvious. Ruefully for Peter, 6 cannot be beaten though that was a pretty tough contract to find.

So, if you think West had it easy on the above board, what about on the next one? You will soon have an important decision to make, despite holding:

62

 T976532

 93

86

A “10” and three doubletons. Wow!

West	North	East	South
	1	x	4
Pass	Pass	x	xx
?

 

With neither side vulnerable, you were prepared to sell out to 4. Would you stand partner’s penalty double? That’s not the question as John used the blue redouble card. What now? How many heart tricks will the defence take? What is the score for 4xx making? (880..I know from past bad experiences!)

Well, I was “a mouse” in the tried and true “man or mouse” expression… but the bidding was not yet finished, even then! These were the 4 hands:

 

John did not send back the double of 5. All four of East’s aces were cashing to record 300, an improvement on the 200 East-West would have gained from 4xx. Meanwhile, 10 tricks was the maximum number West could score in the 5 game.

I think I would be a runner from the redouble next time I held the above hand too, even though the decision this time was wrong.

So, plenty of different emotions from those 2 “powerhouse” hands. It’s great to be back!

Richard Solomon

Peter and John are two players who really enjoy their game and are no slouches, either. They will be one of the pairs representing Auckland-Northland in the Senior event in the Inter-Provincials. Be warned!  

 

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