Saturday, October 29, 2011

Bridge Blog 456: Slammin'

          I can’t find the article that someone mentioned in the Bridge Bulletin about the club where eight of the 24 hands were slams – all in the same direction – but some of the most memorable moments I had this week were the slams.
          On Friday, in the very first round, Eleanor Whelan picked up a 30-point hand, opened 2 Clubs and wound up at 6 No Trump. She took all 13 tricks, but we got 2.5 out of a possible 8 game points anyway. Although we spent most of the day on defense, we had our slam moment too – a gambling 6 Spade contract (missing 2 Kings) that depended on a finesse of the King of Spades to come home. It did, though we weren’t the only ones to do it. 
          On Thursday, in the final game in the Swiss teams, I put partner Sharon Chang into a 6 Diamond contract on the last hand we played, which made her very nervous and made her very happy when she brought it home. At the other table, our opponents played it a 3 No Trump. Instead of winning the round by only 1 International Match Point, we won by 12, which moved us from next-to-last up to a tie with the team in front of us – a minor victory, but you take your scraps of pride where you find them.
          And then there was the hand I wrote down, this one from Tuesday in the middle of my high-score game of the week – a 57.19%, first overall in B – with Ruth Hnath, who filled in as my partner after Marie Suprinick called in sick. It was Board 18, we’re North-South and we’re vulnerable. East is dealer. Here’s my hand:
          Spades: 8-4. Hearts: K-Q-8.
          Diamonds: A-K-Q-10-9-6. Clubs: K-J.
          East-West pass throughout. Ruth opens with a Heart, I bid 2 Diamonds, she goes 3 Clubs and I sniff an opportunity. She, too, has very good cards. How many of them, I wonder, are Aces. 4 No Trump, I bid. Blackwood. Five Spades, she replies. She’s got the other three. May as well go 5 No Trump and ask for Kings. None. No problem. The way I count it, we have six Diamond tricks, five Heart tricks and the other two Aces. I pull all the rest of the bidding cards out of the box. 7 No Trump.
          Of course, I could be wrong about the Diamonds if they break badly, if one of the opponents has four to the Jack. When East leads the King of Spades and the dummy comes down, it’s clear that there are ways around that:
          Spades: A-J-6. Hearts: A-J-10-4-3.
          Diamonds: 4. Clubs: A-Q-9-7.
          OK, five Hearts for sure, but four Clubs. I only need three Diamond tricks and the Ace of Spades. I play out the Clubs and the Hearts and claim. Here are the other hands:
          East:
          Spades: K-Q-10-9-2. Hearts: 7-6.
          Diamonds: 8-3-2. Clubs: 10-6-4.
          West:
          Spades: 7-5-3. Hearts: 9-2.
          Diamonds: J-7-5. Clubs: 8-5-3-2.
          Out of a possible nine game points, I got 8.5. Only one other pair bid it. A couple more wound up at 7 Hearts, making their slam, but not as good as the No Trump slam. Just one pair bid 6 NT, making an overtrick. Three came in at 6 Hearts, all getting the overtrick. Then there were the people who stopped at 4 NT, making three overtricks. Least fortunate of all were the ones who unaccountably wound up at 5 Clubs. In a game where the top result was 2220, they got a mere 640.

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