Bridge Blog 1091: No waiting

Although I never do well in the ACBL Instant Matchpoint Game, I get a kick out of the immediacy of the scoring. There they are, right in front of you on the score sheet, a list of possible outcomes and how many match points they are worth.

As I saw on Monday, July 8, at the Airport Bridge Club, some players can’t be bothered with figuring it out, but I revel in it, especially when a hand turns out well. I like the thrill of knowing where you stand as the game moves along.

In our first round, the instant scoring showed that Usha Khurana and I did quite well on two out of three hands and the sense of encouragement was palpable. It wasn’t long, however, before that other sense – deflation – set in. Particularly deflating was what seemed like a hard-fought bid-and-make game contract that everybody made and turned out to be worth only 36 out of 100 MPS.

Then there was the hand where we ran into an anomaly – a score that wasn’t even listed among the MPS possibilities. Here it is – Board 3, South is dealer, East-West is vulnerable.

South (Usha)

Spades: Q-7-4-2; Hearts: 7; Diamonds: A-6-5-4; Clubs: A-J-7-4.

West (Linda Zittel)

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

North (me)

Spades: K-10-9-8; Hearts: 9-8-3; Diamonds: K-Q-8-3-2; Clubs: 5.

East (Jan Hasselback)

Spades: A-J-5-3; Hearts: A-6-5-4-2; Diamonds: 10-9; Clubs: 9-6.

The commentary booklet has South opening 1 Diamond, West going 2 Clubs, North doubling, East overcalling 2 Hearts, South bidding 2 Spades, West raising to 3 Hearts and South winning the auction at 3 Spades.

At our table, however, North was declarer (Did I answer that 2 Club bid by overcalling with a four-card major? Might have.) The contract settled not at 3 Spades, which is makeable, but at 4 Spades after East-West pressed to 4 Hearts. The first lead from East, not West – the 9 of Clubs – may have made a difference. But probably not.

As I recall, I set up a cross-ruff in Clubs and Hearts and, despite the bad trump break, somehow held Jan and Linda to just three tricks – Ace of Spades, Ace of Hearts and one trump. Our Plus 420, a top board at the club, turned out to be a mystery number. The list of possible scores included 470, worth 73 MPS, and 300, worth 72 MPS, but no 420.