Bridge Blog 1069: Once in a Lifetime

In 14 years of duplicate bridge and five decades of social bridge before that, I never pick up a hand like the one I get Friday afternoon on Board 2 at the Bridge Centre of Niagara in St. Catharines, Ont.

But my amazement turns into a dilemma. How do I translate my good fortune into the slam that it deserves to be? Here’s the hand:

Spades: A-K-8; Hearts: A-K-5-4; Diamonds: A-K-Q-9; Clubs: A-K.

That’s right. 30 points. All the Aces and Kings. But what does partner Selina Volpatti have? And how do I find out? Ask for Aces?

Too many high card points to bid 3 No Trump, which would indicate 25 to 27, so I opt for 2 Clubs, an open-ended declaration of strength. Selina gives the 2 Diamond waiting bid. I go 2 Hearts. Her bid will tell me where to go.

It’s 2 Spades. Aha! She’s got five of them with the Queen. Or something. So I’ll take nine or 10 tricks and her Spades will do the rest. I take the leap. Six No Trump.

Percy Harcourt, sitting East, leads the 3 of Diamonds. Then I see the dummy:

Spades: J-10-7-5-2; Heart: J; Diamond: 7; Clubs: Q-J-9-6-4-2.

Ouch! Cash the Clubs and I’m golden. But how can I get over to the board? I unblock the Clubs by playing the Ace-King, then go after my best hope – the Spades. I play Ace-King, but Percy has three Spades and his Queen doesn’t drop. I’m sunk. I lose a Spade, a Diamond and a Heart. Down two. We get 2.5 match points out of a possible 12.

The hand record shows this making 4 NT, 6 Spades and 7 Clubs. So I need a better bid. Let’s go to the website and see how the others did.

Aha! Nobody finds the Clubs. They’re all in No Trump, except for Pair 12, Lise Rowland and Janet Rookley, who bid 6 Spades and make it, with South as declarer. Second-best bids are a pair of 3 NTs making five. Bottom board bid 7 NT, down four. Six of us bid 6 NT, three of us down one, two of us down two and one down three.

Meanwhile, we do better elsewhere, collecting three absolute top boards, two of them defensively, the third in the very first round when Selina makes a 3 Heart contract that’s only supposed to be good for eight tricks. We’re fifth overall with 53.04% and earn 0.26 of a point. Had I gotten Board 2 right, we would have been third.