Sense Of Grievance

7th October – Board 25: E/W Vul. Dealer North.

	North: S 5 H A 10 8 7 6 2 D none C A K 10 6 4 3
West: S 10 8 7 6 4 2 H 4 D A 8 4 2 C 5 2		East: S A K Q 9 3 H none D K Q J 10 6 C Q J 9
	South: S J H K Q J 9 5 3 D 9 7 5 3 C 8 7

Those people holding the East hand were, by and large, disappointed with the result from the hand shown above. 6H is of course ‘cold’ for N/S and those who were allowed to play there could be forgiven for feeling a sense of grievance at scoring below average. Why was that? Well somebody had made 6HX for 1210, just beating the rather quaint score of 1200 for 5HXX+1. A lot depended I imagine on whether N/S were ‘pushed’ to a slam or whether they went there freely. If the latter then that East hand begins to lose some of its appeal. Where I was watching the bidding went as follows: -

West	North	East	South
	1H	Dbl	4H
4S	4NT	No	5D
No	6H	End

4NT was RKCB and declarer must have been relieved that the one key-card was not the ace of diamonds! It is hard for E/W to know they should be sacrificing, although on an unlikely ace of hearts lead the sacrifice would be very profitable indeed. As an aside East should double 4NT, not because they are going to play there but because most pairs – even regular pairs – do not know how that affects the responses to the Blackwood enquiry.