Linda Lee — My personal bridge blog

One Glorious Moment in Shanghai

I was feeling quite sick when we sat down against England.  Pamela was feeding me cough drops and I had a big bottle of orange juice and another grapefruit juice at the table.  We arrived just in the nick of time (which I usually hate).  The English women were very nice and Pamela was friends with her screenmate so they chatted happily.  Most of the action was East-West so it was going to be primarily Pamela and I against the East-West pair in the other room to see who came out on top.  The action started on the very first board.  North opened 2and you have void A J 10 4 3 A 5 4 2 A K J 4.  You double and the bidding continues 3 by South, 3NT by partner.  I chose to bid 4 over this and partner bid 5♣. Do you bid on?  I bid 6♣.  The whole hand was:

Q J 7 6 5 2
Q 9 7
Q J T 6
void
A K T 8 Box void
8 2 A J T 4 3
K 9 8 A 5 4 2
Q T 5 2 A K J 4
9 4 3
K 6 5
7 3
9 8 7 6 3

Pamela was able to make the contract on a crossruff despite the 5-0 trump break.  The match continued in much the same vein and we bid and made 3 slams altogether along with some other good scores.  This is another favorite slam hand.  Pamela held A K 3 10 8 7 6 9 10 9 6 3 2.  This was the start of the auction:

Me     Pamela
1♦     1
3  4 
5       ?

What is partner doing?  Do you have the right hand to go on?  Obviously I had a very big hand and Pamela deduced that I likely had a spade void.  I had to have something like 0-4-5-4 or maybe 0-4-6-3.  The double fit improved her hand despite the wasted spade honours and she bid 6— choice of slams.  I bid 6  to end the auction.  Pamela made it despite a bad trump break on a well timed dummy reversal.  Here is the whole hand.

Q J 7 5 4
4
J 10 7 2
K 8 5
A K 3 Box void
10 8 7 6 A K Q 5
  9 A 6 5 4 3
10 9 6 3 2 A Q J 7
10 9 8 6 2
J 9 3 2
K Q 8
4

.Our partners had a great card and we blitzed England to move up to a more respectable position.  Later that evening our teammates had another great match to win 22 more VP and end a lovely day.

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