Better Bridge in Barry County
By Gerald Stein
North
ª: K 10
©: A Q J 10 9 6 4
¨: K 7 2
§: 3
West East
ª: 8 7 6 4 3 2 ª: A J 9
©: --- ©: K 5 3
¨: A J 6 5 ¨: 10 8
§: J 9 8 South §: A K Q 4 2
ª: Q 5
©: 8 7 2
¨: Q 9 4 3
§: 10 7 6 5
Lead: ©2
“Do you know what I touch here?” Miss Havisham asked, laying her hands, one upon the other, on her left side.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Pip.
“What do I touch?”
“Your heart.”
“Broken!” (from Great Expectations, Chapter VIII).
In today’s bridge hand, North could feel much like Charles Dickens’ reclusive spinster Miss Havisham, jilted on her wedding day at twenty minutes to nine. Her world ended at that moment. North hopefully will shrug off the vagaries of bridge-playing and will look forward to the next hand. The bidding went as follows:
Dealer West North East South
Pass 1© 1NT Pass
4© Dbl 4ª All Pass
North has a solid opening bid with strong hearts, a singleton club, and two kings. North has big plans for his team, envisioning a marriage of four hearts if his partner has some support. This is all supposition, however, barring interference from the opponents.
East has other plans for his team, and he bids a solid 1NT overcall, promising between 15 and 18 high card points. He has them too with a heart stopper behind North’s opening bid.
Poor South is poor indeed and reluctantly passes. Four points is too little to help out his partner North even with three helping hearts in his hand.
Enter West with six spades, but what miserable-looking spades, he thinks. However, per their partnership agreement, West bids a transfer bid of 4©, often called a Texas Transfer or a Super Transfer because it is a big jump, promising enough for game in the next suit, in this case, spades. Also he has just re-evaluated his hand upwards with the void in hearts.
North sees his promising 4© bid evaporate before his eyes. It is his “twenty minutes to nine” moment, and the best he can do is to double for a lead-directing message to his partner South.
West completes the bidding by answering the transfer bid from his partner to 4ª. All pass and East has an easy time taking his ten tricks, making a non-vulnerable game. North-South are able to take only the three tricks that come their way, and not one of them is a heart trick. North is indeed heart-broken. He ponders the thought of sacrificing by bidding 5©, but he realizes that even then, the best that the North-South team could do would be to take eight tricks, down three tricks, no doubt doubled by East, for a loss of 500 points. That would be a worse score than allowing the East-West team to make their 4ª contract.
All in all, sometimes even with an outstanding hand that North holds and is hoping for a good contract, the nature of bridge bidding is an auction, and the highest bidder wins the contract. While broken-hearted on this hand, North will play again and will do well on another hand. That is the nature of the game, and a wonderful game it is.
Finally, to honor the memory of Charles Dickens and his contributions to the world of literature and storytelling, it is most appropriate to bid a Happy 200th Birthday to a great author and great social critic: February 7, 1812-February 7, 2012. Happy Birthday, Charles Dickens.
(An update from Institute for Learning in Retirement’s Beginning Bridge class going on currently in Battle Creek at Kellogg Community College: Students have learned to use the various numbers in bridge; they have learned to compare and contrast the Charles Goren way of the 1960’s and the modern Standard American way of playing bridge; they have learned the Stayman Convention, and they are playing hands of bridge and laughing. According to Mert, one of the students, “This is the fastest two hours of my week.”)
Gerald Stein
Visit my bridge blog: http://betterbridgeinbarrycountymichigan.blogspot.com/
February 9, 2012
711 words.
No comments:
Post a Comment