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Making a wildy
imaginative bid I am convinced that one of the great pleasures in life is to make a wildly imaginative bid at the bridge table and find that the lie of the cards justifies your supreme optimism and enables you to make your contract.
This week’s deal is taken from the 1978 World Open Teams in New Orleans. East dealt at love all and after two passes West opened One Diamond. North (Robinson, playing for one of the American teams) started operations with a double. East raised to Two Diamonds and South (Woolsey) passed. North doubled again, forcing South to bid Two Hearts. Still with values in reserve North bid the opponents’ suit (Three Diamonds). Now South jumped to four Hearts. So far he had promised absolutely nothing whereas he held five Hearts headed by two honours. It was time to catch up, he reckoned, but not many of us would have thought of his bid. North raised to Six Hearts and all passed. A Club lead would have defeated the slam but, not unnaturally, West led the king of Diamonds. The hand played itself. Declarer eliminated the Spades (with the aid of two finesses), ruffed out dummy’s Diamonds and drew trumps. Then he led a Club from hand and put in dummy’s nine to end-play East who was forced to return a Club into dummy’s tenace or concede a ruff and discard. Would North have bid the
slam with the eight of Clubs instead of the nine? He might have done but
then we would never have read about the hand. |
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If you make the same sort of
bid and the cards lie badly — leading to defeat — who remembers the hand?