Impossible Switch

5th July – Board 16: East/West Vul. Dealer West.

The bridge world was sad to hear of the death of Eric Crowhurst recently, a fine player and a great theoretician. His book ‘Precision Bidding in Acol’ remains the ultimate textbook for good bidding and analyses just about every bidding sequence you are ever likely to come across. He was of course the originator of the Crowhurst convention and would have loved the hand shown below.

The idea that Crowhurst promulgated was that a rebid of 1NT showed 12-16 points, not just 15-16, and the responder to such a bid could ask for more clarification by bidding 2C, the bid that bears Eric’s name. So in the sequence shown above 1NT showed 12-16 points and 2C asked. The 2H bid showed a minimum hand with five hearts and two spades leaving East with a simple raise to game. In the play North led a diamond and needing a quick ninth trick declarer played a spade to the king and claimed nine tricks when that card held. Almost impossible, one would think, for North to rush in with the ace and switch to the ace of hearts. Some hands are just too hard.