QJ). Everyone at
the table knows you have them both. If a suit-preference signal
is not a consideration, can it ever matter which you choose to
play?There's always something on in Brighton at the same time as the bridge. Usually it's something like a 60s music festival. This year the main side attraction was a vibrant gay and lesbian carnival procession. There was a circus too...
The final ranking list of the Brighton Swiss Pairs only tells half the story. The County's Grandmasters Chris Jagger & John Young walked the tightrope over the heads of most of the other 599 pairs for the duration and just missed out on the star billing. Close behind were juniors Gareth Birdsall & Ollie Burgess surviving in the lions den and finishing 8th. The pair have had an excellent Summer, also winning the U25 trials by quite a margin. Rod Oakford & John Short performed a stunning acrobatic display and landed in 33rd. Congratulations to them all. This is the tale of two clowns who kept tripping over and getting pasted about hundred places lower, behind several other class acts from the County.
I start with a sad story. At trick nine you have two
touching cards (the QJ). Everyone at
the table knows you have them both. If a suit-preference signal
is not a consideration, can it ever matter which you choose to
play?
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I led the K, partner playing the
7. Declarer led a spade to the ace, ruffed a club, cashed the
A and played the 9, covered by partner with the J
and ruffed. He ruffed another club, ruffed the 10 (covered by the K), and
then led a spade to the J, Q and K.
Partner chose to play back a diamond at this point, declarer
pitching his club. You ruff and your last four cards are 
A9 and QJ. Why
does it matter which club you play?
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry over the next one! (Those of you who know me will not be surprised to hear that I compromised and just sat there impassively). It appears to be a distant cousin of the previous hand. When might it be wrong to cash an ace when you know that technically it will make no difference to the play of the hand?
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Redouble was an escape mechanism forcing 2. Should I have doubled on the way out? However, there
is still an easy opportunity for a top. Or do you prefer a
custard pie?
I led the 9 to the A, partner
showing an odd number. Declarer played the A and ruffed a heart and then curiously led the 
8 to the 7, 3, and 9. Partner cashed the
A and played the K then the Q, declarer following
twice. How many different ways can you take this contract two
off?
We were also made to look foolish by Monica Lucy, a regular
in the Bedfordshire A team. With Q872 A107643 AK 9 you are
playing 4 on the auction 1-1-X-2, 3-4
all Pass. The negative double had shown precisely four spades.
LHO led the 5 and RHO (after winning
with the K) switched to the A and
another.
If by this time you haven't followed smoothly with the 8 and Q you have
gone off. You should still go off anyway, but first thing on a
Sunday morning you have every chance of pulling a fast one on
two clowns, as Monica did here. Although a spade continuation
was fairly obviously safe, we didn't find our spade ruff.
This was the full hand on the first problem:
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The issue is that you know that there is no possible trump
promotion and you don't want partner to ruff high. How can you
tell partner this? Well, I think it's clear that the Q (the normal card) should tell partner to
discard (normal) and the J (the
abnormal card) should tell partner that something special is
required. When I carelessly played the J, partner ruffed in with the Q from Q7 (as I believe he
should) and we lost a trump trick. It would have been the right
thing for him to do had my last two trumps been KJ or K10.
On the second defensive problem, I assumed partner was
2-3-3-5 and therefore it didn't matter whether I discarded (and
let us come to three natural trump tricks - he is marked with
the A) or alternatively ruffed his
winner and gave him a spade ruff. I chose the latter to
"reward" him for cashing the A. Sadly,
the full hand was:
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and this meant that we only scored +100 for a near bottom
instead of +200 for a near top. His rationale for cashing the
A was to let me know he had it (nice
insult, partner - as if I couldn't work it out from declarer's
play in the suit!) and make it easy for me to discard my third
spade for a ruff. However, it is entirely my fault because I
declined a 100% play for something uncertain which could never
be better.