Loading ...a little love story
George and I played bridge last night; he was a perfect partner and I tried my best. We used our time in the car (about an hour on the way to the game) to go over the recent system changes; much of what I play came from George’s system with Alfredo, but as is often the case Judi and Shannon and I have tinkered with it a bit here and there. I never remember every single thing (we spent most of the night talking about changes I’d forgotten to mention) but once in a while we get lucky and something comes up after we’ve discussed it. Look how well it worked out for us on this deal:
Everybody vulnerable, I held:
S KJ85
H A4
D Q5
C AKJ72
I was sitting there wondering if I was supposed to rebid 2S or 2NT (after a theoretical 1C opener by me in 3rd seat) when George opened 1NT and I fell head over heels in love with my hand. I started with 2C (Stayman) and partner jumped to 3S, showing exactly 15 high card points and 5 spades — a treatment Judi and I worked on and discussed earlier this week and which I remembered to mention in the car. How lucky is that!
How best to express my passion? I was pretty sure 4NT immediately would be a quantitative wet-blanket (do you have a good 15, partner?) so I started with 4C and George, as he (almost) always does, gave me my heart’s desire. He cuebid 4D, I got turned on and cuebid 4H and he signed off with 4S. I was in hot pursuit — 4NT by me was Keycard and then my sweetheart decided to play hard to get. Two without the Queen.
Fifteen, I thought. Five spades. Two aces, that’s eight. No Queen of spades. The hard work with Judi’s paying off, if only insofar as I have more snippets of advice popping up in times of need: as a matter of style and by agreement (as I’ve told you before), we bid (small) slams missing an Ace and Queen-fourth of trump. Do we bid grand slams missing the Queen-fourth? I’m missing the Queen of spades; the King, Queen and Jack of hearts; the Ace, King and Jack of diamonds and the Queen of clubs. That’s eighteen, of which George holds exactly fifteen.
The trump Queen was a red flag, but I wasn’t letting some woman interfere with all the love I was feeling for that hand, so I bid 5NT, asking for specific Kings. George bid 6H, showing the heart King. So he has Ace of spades, King hearts, Ace of diamonds. He must hold either the heart or club Queen, providing pitches for my losers or his, I figured. 7S.
George, who’s always said he’d carpet my sidewalks (and not just when it’s convenient), said thank you when I put the dummy down, called for a low club from dummy and won it cheaply, played the Ace of Spades out of his hand and didn’t look the slightest bit surprised when his right hand opponent showed out. +2210. His hand was:
S AT643
H KQ
D A94
C QT9
First week of school went so well. Miss Palumbo rocked the second grade and across town, life is better than ever now that we’re in Middle School.
I apologize for the last post, which flamed up almost immediately. Closed comments and will avoid such things in the future.
August 30th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Nice bid. 7S is bette rthan 7N in case George holds J of hearts and J of diamonds instead of Q clubs. Then you may be able to set up clubs with a ruff.
I think the odds of finding the Q of spades with 9 of them are about 65%.
August 31st, 2008 at 10:04 am
Maybe even better than 65%, Bob. A trump lead versus a grand slam is quite popular, especially when the opponents have such good methods for checking solidity. It is not so popular when the opening leader has the queen! Perhaps George had this in mind.
I had a hand long ago in Wisconsin where my lady partner conducted a similar auction to a similar destination. As she put down the dummy, she instructed me, “Find it!”
August 31st, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Hi, Jeff — nice to see you’re back blogging again.
Funny, the part of the story I left out was when the hand was over George looked over the top of his glasses at me and said “Would you like to know why I played the spades that way?”
I made some sort of guess and he said almost exactly what you did: “Since she didn’t lead a trump, she had to have something she was proud of.”
This morning I’m wondering about an alternate case — what if she didn’t lead it because she has none and righty has Queen-fourth?