wildbill@ucbvax.ARPA (William J. Laubenheimer) (05/07/85)
Yes, this really happened. I was there.
IMPs, none vul.
North East South West
---- ---- pass 1 H
3 H* 4 NT 7 C pass
pass dbl (all pass)
*explanation: shows solid/nearly solid suit (usually minor), invites 3NT
with heart stopper.
You, West, hold:
S- K 9 5, H- A 10 6 3 2, D- Q J 9 4 2, C- void
What do you lead?
----------------------------------------
North
S- A
H-
D- 8 7 5 3
C- A K J 10 9 5 4 2
West East
S- K 9 5 S- 10 7 6
H- A 10 6 3 2 H- K Q J 9 8 7 4
D- Q J 9 4 2 D- A 10
C- C- 6
South
S- Q J 8 4 3 2
H- 5
D- K 6
C- Q 8 7 3
As can be seen from the diagram, the only lead to defeat South's "save" is
a diamond. On the actual low spade lead, my partner won in dummy and,
thinking "oh heck, what's another 200 gonna cost, anyway", led the
club 4 to the 7 to draw the outstanding trump, and followed with the spade
queen for a ruffing finesse against West, ruffing with the club ace when
West covered. He then returned to his hand with my club 2 to his 3, and
discarded all my diamonds when spades split 3-3 for +1630 and 17 IMPs
(our teammates played 6H down 1). Play proceeds similarly on a heart lead;
a diamond nets down 1 for a 4 IMP loss for our side.
This deal generated some interesting byplay during the bidding. West's
facial expression upon finding that he was going to have to make his
second call at the 7-level was such a marvelous picture of how he felt
that we all had a nice, sympathetic laugh with him. When 7Cx got back
to my partner, he asked East, who had alerted West's pass to 7C, "Do
you have any understandings regarding auctions like this?", referring
to cases where interference goes past 6 of the supposedly agreed suit.
East replied, "Uh... no --", whereupon West butted in with "and I
don't think we'll develop any, either" before East could finish saying
"but I expect first-round club control".
The hand made the rounds very quickly -- I walked into two groups of
people who were having all the gory details recited to them; the
second of these was getting it second-hand. And yes, we needed most of
those 17 IMPs, since on the very next board we waltzed right into a
21-opposite-16-HCP vulnerable 7NT that only required four tricks from
KQ4 opposite A9832 or a simple squeeze effective against either side,
which failed when the suit broke 5-0 and the other hand was long in the
second squeeze suit. That suit was led (!) at the other table, which
cost us the 17 from the first board and 3 more besides, but we hung on
to win the match in spite of that.
Bill Laubenheimer
----------------------------------------UC-Berkeley Computer Science
...Killjoy went that-a-way---> ucbvax!wildbill
Remember, you can always tell a bridge player, but you can't tell him much!