Hard Luck Story

18th September – Board 8. Love All. Dealer West.

I gave up playing pairs many years ago now and the featured hand reminds me why I did. Mind you, it featured some excellent bridge.

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

West	North	East	South
1C	No	1S	2H
3H	No	3S	No
4C	No	4H	No
4NT	No	5D	No
7S	End

I give the excellent auction as found by the winners. Note how right it is to open 1C and not something higher which only takes away so much bidding space and makes it difficult to explore fully. There is no chance at all that 1C will be passed out and here when partner is able to respond 1S the hand becomes really huge. Of course when South bids hearts you are looking at two potential losers in that suit so you have to try and find a way of getting partner to own up to a control there. So 3H shows a good raise in spades and 4C is a cue-bid. 4H is also a cue-bid but could be either first or second round according to their methods – a good one incidentally if used with caution – but 4NT confirms the fact that it is the ace. Now 7S is the stand out bid and the only slight worry is that partner might only have four small spades but it is a risk worth taking. Even with the clubs breaking so badly 7S is virtually laydown but sadly was only bid by the one pair. So why is this a hard luck story? Well it is for North/South who did nothing wrong at all but had to enter a big fat zero on their scorecard.