| Adventures of a bridge professional 18: Finally, bridge again |
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That is why Bas Drijver and I started off in high spirits. But quickly we realised this was not going to be our tournament. My earlier feeling of winning had obviously been a trick of my imagination. Just take a look at our bidding on this deal: (rotated for reader's convenience)
1 Multi: usually a weak two in a major Bas judged it might be better if he became declarer, in order to protect his ♠K against the lead. By bidding 2NT he wanted to find out if I was OK with 3NT as well. A little later Bas and I won the prize for the best contract.
Yes: 6♦, in the 4-3 fit. And not 6NT, which is where every single other NS pair played. In 6♦ South, the hand with the longer trump suit, counts three losers: two hearts and a spade. He can pitch one of the heart losers (after drawing trumps) on the fourth club and ruff the spade loser in dummy. (That will have to be done before drawing all of the trumps but the risk of East (over)ruffing is small: one in ten. And the chance of the diamond suit being 5-1 − the other risk − is only one in seven. The chance of success of 6♦ is almost 80%, therefore —Ed. Bridgevaria). 6♦ is a much better contract than 6NT, since the latter contract depends on finding West with the ♥K. By way of a complicated auction, we ended up in 6♦. Alas...
The diamond suit was 5-1 — so we ended up down in 6♦ — and the ♥K was with West — so 6NT was made at all other tables. This kind of thing is so unfair. Injustice, I can't handle it very well. In the round robin of the Dutch Master League teams a similar deal arose:
At every table except ours NS bid 6NT. Bas and I bid 6♠. I went down when the ♥K, on which I pitched the ♣8, was ruffed. (Sjoert had to do so before drawing trumps: if he drew trumps first, EW would hold off the ♥A once, leaving dummy's second master heart stranded. 6♠ is a very good contract since dummy can ruff the ♦9. The slam is made as long as the heart suit is 4-3, the diamond suit better than 6-1, and the spade suit better than 5-1, —Ed. Bridgevaria). 6NT was a poor contract but was made when the ♦J10 came down. (The other, also small, chance of success was the ♣Q coming down in the first or second round. It looks like a minor suit squeeze — close to 50% chance: one opponent must have both the ♣Q and the long diamond suit — makes 6NT a good contract, but that is not the case. Even if one opponent had controlled both minor suits, all East has to do is retain the ♥A once. Dummy now lacks entries for the squeeze to function, —Ed. Bridgevaria). Our team manager put it like this: 'Just don't bid any more slams in a 4-3 fit.' |
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