It's kind of perverse to
think it, but sometimes a mistake by a new partner can break the awkwardness of
establishing a relationship. It certainly was the case today, Tuesday, Dec.
9, in the Christmas Party game at the Niagara-on-the-Lake Bridge Club.
I'm playing for the first
time with Rod Sumner and before we start, he outlines some of the conventions
he likes to follow – e.g., he plays two-over-one, while I stick to standard
(North) American. Then, sitting East-West, we pick up our first hands on Board
25 against a sharp pair, Sophie Chess and Sandra Felton. Sophie's North, bids
first and passes. We're vulnerable, but I see that my hand satisfies both the
Rule of 15 and the Rule of 20:
Spades: A-8-6-5; Hearts:
J-9; Diamonds, Q-6-4; Clubs: A-J-7-6.
I open a Club. Rod holds
a 20-point hand:
Spades: K; Hearts
A-K-Q-5; Diamonds K-8-3; Clubs: K-Q-10-4-3.
He brings the bidding to
4 No Trump, asking for Key Cards in a push for slam. I bid 5 Hearts, showing my
two Aces. He takes it to 6, but in Spades.
Sandra, sitting South,
holds six Spades and is void in Clubs. If she doubles, Rod goes to 6 NT. But she doesn't. It's a train wreck. Down 4. A bottom
board on our very first hand. Rod confesses that he pulled the wrong bidding card. Six
NT is what he wanted. Six other East-Wests made 6 NT and three of them
bid it.
No big
deal, I say. (God knows I've done worse!) In my mind, though, I'm relieved.
After that, I reckon that my wrongs will be similarly overlooked, at least for a
little while. Eventually, with some effective defensive play, we find our footing. We do
particularly well against my usual partner, Selina Volpatti, who's playing with
Donna Fettes and looking stunning in sparkly black. Against them, we take 16.5 out of a
possible 22 match points.
When the final scores are
announced during the Christmas Party dinner, we're third East-West with 57.20%,
first in the B strat in our direction, winning 1.38 black master points. Overjoyed, we
promise to partner up again. (Selina and Donna get 57.01%, third North-South.)
Had the first board gone differently, though, Rod points out, we would be second, since we're only four match points behind the second-place pair, Mary House and Jerry Smee. (They took 12 tricks in No Trump, but stopped short of bidding the slam.) We also would have kept Sophie and Sandra from taking top honors North-South. But there was no catching the East-West leaders, Keith Heckley and Chandi Jayawardena. They bid the 6 NT slam and went on to rack up an amazing 70.08%.
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