Sometimes it taks three to declare

In the pairs yesterday at the Seaside Regional, I declared a hand with a little help from my friends... Nobody did anything awful, but we ended up with a ridiculous result.

Partner opened 1S in third seat (by partnership agreement), I responded 1NT, and everyone passed. The six of diamonds was led. I played the queen, dropping the ten on my right. 

I led the jack of clubs, covered by the king (good play).  I could have ducked this and dropped the queen on the next round for five club tricks, but were I to duck it, finessing again (playing East for KQx) would probably have been my play. But I wasn't going for all those tricks. All I was looking for was five tricks. -100 seemed like it would be a good matchpoint score. So I went up with the ace and shot a club back. 

West won the queen and switched to the......... queen of hearts! I covered with the king, and East won the ace. He switched back to diamonds, and I let him hold the jack. He then went back to hearts. I won and reeled off lots of clubs. West felt that he was in a pinch. He pitched his last heart and a spade, then decided that his diamonds couldn't take a trick... right he was! he pitched his eight of diamonds, then, on the last club, the king of diamonds. I pitched the ace of diamonds from dummy! The 9-4 in my hand were good, and I gave up a spade at trick 13 for making three.

And the award for Worst Bid and Best Played Hand goes to...

...B. Jay Becker! 

Mr. Becker played with Dorothy Hayden in the 1963 International Team Trials. They tied for fourth in the event, just shy of being placed on the USA team in the 1964 World Team Olympiad. Mr. Becker and Mrs. Hayden had a bit of a bidding misunderstanding, but Mr. Becker played the hand majestically.

As was standard at the time, Hayden's 3C (jump preference in a minor) was forcing. Mr. Becker made an invitational 4C bid... but Hayden remembered their actual agreement that 4C was Gerber (ace-asking)! She responded 4S (two aces), and when the bidding got back to Mr. Becker, he figured that any partner that bid diamonds, clubs, and spades couldn't have more than one heart-- so he bid the club slam!

Leading aces against slams may (and may not) be good matchpoint strategy, but it's awful at IMPs. So we certainly forgive Sam Stayman in the West seat for not cashing the first three heart tricks! He opened a small diamond. Mr. Becker played the jack, holding, cashed the DA for a heart pitch, ruffed a diamond, played a club to the ace, ruffed another diamond (exhausting E-W of that suit), cashed a trump, and drew trumps ending on the board leading to this position:

The diamond queen was cashed (South pitching a heart), and East (Vic Mitchell) was squeezed in a fun way. He couldn't release his spade guard, so he let go a heart honor. Mr. Becker cashed the queen of spades and led the eight of spades. Mitchell split his honors (all later agreed that Mr. Becker certainly would have stuck in the 9 if Mitchell hadn't split) and South won and exited the jack of hearts! If West hopped up with the ace, he would have to lead from the 8-5 of hearts into dummy's T-6 at trick 12, and if he didn't, East would win and have to lead from J-7 of spades into declarer's A-9!

Maybe I should stop bidding so scientifically so I get the chance to make plays like this...

You Be The Judge

Many years ago, The Bridge World ran a column called "You Be The Judge". TBW would present a famous disaster and ask a panel to assess blame. The East-West hands were shown and an august panel would answer two questions:

(a) What was West's percentage of the blame for the final result?

(b) What was the single worst call [or play] of the hand?

I liked this column a lot. It was discontinued about a decade ago, so I don't feel awful about 'borrowing' the format.

By the way, if I haven't said this before, TBW is the one tool that every bridge player needs. Looking back on my bridge life, the thing that primed my brain for high-level competition and brought my game from middling-intermediate to expert is reading my Bridge World every month cover to cover and reading any back issue I could get my hands on. I was thrilled a few months ago to be able to buy over 100 back issues from the 1950s to the 1980s. Hopefully in a few decades my collection will be filled in. Hardly a night goes by that I don't read at least one back issue in bed before falling asleep. If you don't currently have a subscription, get one. If you already have one, get one for your favorite partner.

So let's get judgmental!

Dealer: West Vul: Both Scoring: IMPs

♠ J ♥ KJ84 ♦ A98432 ♣ K3 ♠ A65 ♥ Q72 ♦ KJT5 ♣ AQ7

1♦ - 2♦;
3♦ - 3NT;
Pass

Playing a strong notrump based system, West opened a natural diamond. East made an invitational or better raise with 2♦. When West rebid 3♦, East bid 3NT and West let it sit.

3NT made 4 on a spade lead. Obviously, 6♦ is laydown unless an opponent has Axxxx of hearts, and would have made at the table, giving E-W some very nice neckwear. As it was, they 'settled' (happily, may I add) for 6th overall in the World IMP Pairs in Verona, Italy, in the summer of 2006.

So-- the two questions for you, loyal readers:

(a) What is West's percentage of the blame?
(b) What was the single worst call?

Worst Defense Ever

Dealer: East Vul: None Scoring: MPs

♠ AKT872 ♥ none ♦ AQJ52 ♣ 98 ♠ J ♥ QT653 ♦ K97 ♣ JT64 ♦4 led ♠ 964 ♥ J984 ♦ T43 ♣ A53 ♠ Q53 ♥ AK72 ♦ 86 ♣ KQ72

1♣ – 1♠ 1N – 2♦! 2♠ – 4♥ Pass!

We were East-West, and were silent throughout the auction. North-South had a New Minor Forcing mishap and ended up in their 0-4 fit!

East started out with a diamond lead to the king and ace. A spade went to the queen, and a spade back. West declined to ruff (pitching a diamond), hoping East had ducked the ace on the last round, so North won the ace. That's three tricks in. Declarer cashed one more diamond, that's four. A club to the king, for five. Now West ruffed the last spade from dummy, and just in case North's heart shortness was the singleton jack, played the queen of hearts, won on the table. Six tricks. Declarer cashed king of hearts (seven) and a heart, East winning. East now drew the last trumps from dummy and partner, and exited a diamond -- and North's last three cards were all good. -420.

The Director, despite our requests, did not dock us ten masterpoints apiece for this defense.