Bridge Blog 410: The one that got away

          Marie Suprinick and I drew the first round sit-out at the Airport Bridge Club Tuesday and, having shuffled Boards 1, 2 and 3, we decided to look at them to see what we were missing. Boards 1 and 3 were rather mundane hands that put us on defense, but Board 2 was a killer. We looked it over and concluded that, by not playing it, we missed making a slam. Here’s North and South:

          North

          Spades: None; Hearts: Q-9-8-5-2; Diamonds: A-Q-9; Clubs: A-5-4-3-2.

          South

          Spades: 5; Hearts: K-J-10-7-6-4-3; Diamonds: 4; Clubs: K-Q-9-6.

          When we started asking our successive opponents about it, however, we got a different story. We hadn’t looked at the East-West hands and what happened at many tables was that East-West preempted, with East opening 4 Spades. Here are their hands:

          East

          Spades: K-Q-J-10-9-7-3-2; Hearts: None; Diamonds: 6-5; Clubs: J-10-8.

          West

          Spades: A-8-6-4; Hearts: A; Diamonds: K-J-10-8-7-3-2; Clubs: 7.

          I grabbed the traveler, the running score sheet, after the game and discovered that only two North-Souths got to play this hand in Hearts and they were both at 7 Hearts doubled vulnerable. One was down one. One was down two.

          Mostly, East-West took the bid in Spades. Four Spades making an overtrick. Five Spades doubled, down one (twice). And 6 Spades doubled, down one (three times).