Okay.
(1) Maybe they bid and made a slam in spades? That might have happened in one of Richard Pavlicek's "Twilight Zone" articles, but here:
[space]W [space] [space] N [space] [space] E [space] [space] S
[space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] 2S
[space]P [space] [space] P [space] [space] X [space] [space] P
[space]P [space] [space]3C [space] [space]3H [space] [space] P
4H [space] [space] P [space] [space] P [space] [space] P
I led the
♣8 and East would go on to make six for 480. What was extraordinary about this hand was what hit the table when LHO put down her dummy. Her hand would feature, among other things,
♠AK10984.
I was in shock for a good two or three minutes over my narrow escape from total annihilation. Many of you would consider a weak-two-bid on my cards at this vulnerability an act of deranged lunacy, but I consider myself a lunatic, so there you go. Partner had Q-J-eighth of clubs, so we were in no danger there, but it came as a darting surprise to see my wild, devil-may-care style outed and exposed so forcefully. Even the
♠7 was shown to be lacking in my suit during the early play (partner had it).
(2) I believe Rainer Herrmann's line would work, if he followed it up properly (which I'm sure he would). At the table, after the
♦A and
♠AK, I crossed to the
♣A (RHO dropped
♣Q), ruffed a club, and tried the
♦K, which RHO
ruffed. Yes, diamonds were 6-1. RHO got out with the
♣J, which I ruffed as LHO dropped the king. Next came a diamond ruff in dummy, RHO pitching a club, then the
♣9 off the table. RHO covered with the
♣10 and I pitched a heart.
Seeing RHO turn up with the
♥A was gratifying. Our teammates defeated this at the other table, but it would not be quite enough to win the match, as a collection of minor miscues on other boards led to our team losing by 7 IMPs and being dropped into the 3rd/4th place match in the next round.
(3) This was the last board of the 3/4 match. Our opponents, who were the overall favorite in our bracket, had been upset in the other semifinal to land here. During the course of the match it became clear that we were up against a superior; they seemed to grow stronger as the match wore on, while it felt like we might be fading.
On this hand I came back in with 3
♦, which I admit was probably a mistake (I should have doubled). LHO was all over it like a dog on a bone. She promptly doubled, I ran to 3
♥ and she doubled again. This ended the bidding, LHO led the
♠A and it was clear that I'd slipped into the stew when dummy hit with
♠1098xxx
♥x
♦Q9
♣xxxx. LHO would turn up with
♥Q107x and five diamonds to the king and I was down two for minus 300. They would set our teammates 500 at the other table (no doubt when they got too deep in spades) to put the finishing touches on a 40-IMP blowout.
At any form of scoring, bridge is a murky mixture of luck, skill, judgment, and more luck. It will probably be some more time before I know the size of the role played by each. We were satisfied with our 4th place finish but we could easily have been playing in the final by being a little sharper at either table. I never did find out who won the 1st/2nd place match.
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Posted 2010-August-26, 07:09