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During the round robin of the 1985 World Team Championships (contesting the Bermuda Bowl) Canada played Bermuda. The latter team wasn't one of the favourites (to put it mildly).
The following deal turned out to be a nightmare for the Bermudian South — whose name wasn't mentioned in the original report; sadly enough it is common practice in bridge 'journalism' not to mention the name of a player who makes a mistake... Anyway, because of this deal he probably lost a lot of sleep over many years. Sometimes one wishes that one could go back in time in order to do better. This certainly was such a case.
This was South's hand: S/NS
| | | ♠ | A Q 3 | | | ♥ | A K Q 5 | | | ♦ | 3 | | | ♣ | K J 10 6 5 | |
| West | North | East | South |
|---|
| Gupta | Bermudian 1 | Cannell | Bermudian 2 | | — | — | — | 1♣1 | | 5♣2 | double3 | pass | ?? |
1 Artificial, 16+ HCP, any distribution
2 Transfer to diamonds
3 Showing some values, not a penalty double (though South is of course free to pass)
True: South could pass. But West would bid 5♦ then and if North passed, South would have the same bidding problem. And if North doubled after some hesitation, South probably couldn't pull the double in view of ethics. So South did best by deciding now whether he wanted to defend or try for a slam.
This South player thought along these lines and didn't like any fuzz. He liked to get on with it. He realised that West had disclosed that North very probably had little or no strength in diamonds. So all face cards that North did have, were valuable ones.
And thus, hoping that North had at least three clubs, South bid 6♣.
This was followed by three passes and West lead the ♦4. Dummy was a dream come true:
| S/NS | ♠ | 2 | | | | ♥ | J 10 6 3 | | ♦ | 10 6 2 | | ♣ | A Q 8 7 2 | | | |  | | | | | | | | | | ♠ | A Q 3 | | | ♥ | A K Q 5 | | ♦ | 3 | | ♣ | K J 10 6 5 |
| West | North | East | South |
|---|
| Gupta | Bermudian 1 | Cannell | Bermudian 2 | | — | — | — | 1♣1 | | 5♣2 | double3 | pass | 6♣ | | pass | pass | pass | |
1 Artificial, 16+ HCP, any distribution
2 Transfer to diamonds
3 Showing some values, not a penalty double (though South is of course free to pass) Happily declarer inspected dummy. The club slam was excellent, though of course 6♥ was so too. Relieved that things had turned out so well he played a small diamond in dummy.
Alas: East won and returned a heart, which West ruffed!
Down one, because the heart suit was 5-0. Oh well, bad luck; these things happen, right? And 6♥ doesn't make either, because of the 5-0 split.
Those who reason like that, had better take a look at the whole deal and especially at the card East won the first trick with...
| S/NS | ♠ | 2 | | | | ♥ | J 10 6 3 | | ♦ | 10 6 2 | | ♣ | A Q 8 7 2 | | ♠ | J 9 8 4 | | ♠ | K 10 7 6 5 | | ♥ | — | ♥ | 9 8 7 4 2 | | ♦ | A K Q J 9 8 7 4 | ♦ | 5 | | ♣ | 3 | ♣ | 9 4 | | | ♠ | A Q 3 | | | ♥ | A K Q 5 | | ♦ | 3 | | ♣ | K J 10 6 5 |
East had won that first trick with the ♦5; the trick looking like this: ♦4-♦2-♦5-♦3! Probably it had taken East some time to recover (probably it had even taken some time before he had realised he had won the trick; have the other three players been waiting impatiently for him to lead to the second trick?).
Whatever, once East knew he had to lead to the second trick, he also knew which suit to play: his partner West had taken a terrible risk to get him in the lead. West had to have a void therefore and wanted a ruff before declarer could draw the trumps. East saw that he and dummy had six spades and nine hearts between them, so finding the correct switch, a heart, was a peace of cake. Too late declarer realised that he had in fact taken a losing finesse at the first trick! Going 'up' with the ♦10 or even the ♦6 would have sufficed to prevent East from gaining the lead. That way South would have made all thirteen tricks... Very painful.
South should have paid more attention to the lead. Because it was remarkable in view of the bidding. It is hard to imagine that West has the sort of diamond suit where the ♦4 is the normal lead. No sequence in diamonds and still West could jump to the five level on that suit? If the ♦4 was a normal lead, West would have a shambolic suit (is a seven-card suit without a sequence possible at all? Let alone an eight-card suit, which is the length West's bidding suggests)...
So South should have smelled there was something fishy about that lead and it couldn't cost to go up with dummy's ♦10. But fair is fair: you just have to think of these things... |