Tortured in Toronto, laughing in Middle Earth.. dateline Christchurch NZ

I tried to post a couple of days ago but it doesn’t look like it took so if you have seen some of this before, just ignore it. This post is a bit of bridge and a lot of a travelogue.

Ray and I left Toronto on Sunday for Vancouver and then had a great anniversary dinner at the Cannery. It is a terrific restaurant but you have to hunt for it first, it’s behind imposing barricades at the docks which protects against terrorists and naiive diners. After that we had a really great journey (giving the total elapsed time) to New Zealand. Hurray for pods! We immediately flew to Christchurch which is a lovely town in the middle of the South Island.  While visiting the cathedral, nearby, we met a rabbi and his helper. The rabbi was a young New Yorker, Rabbi Goldstein and he let us hold the traditional Sukkot fruit and palm. It was enormously difficult to get them into protected New Zealand requiring special agricultural permits and more.

Yesterday we took a rather amazing tour to one of the major sites used for the filming of the Lord of the Rings. They took 8 months to build a hall and a village in a remotre valley surrounded by mountains and then after 8 days of filming they tore everything down and replaced everything just as it was. The tour involved fording streams in a 4WD truck and climbing rather steep hills. The whole thing was great fun.

Lord of Rings group with flag

Now for the torture. Just before we left Toronto Colin and I played a session of bridge. It was getting late when I held this hand

S 107653 H 87 D 97 C 9652

Your partner opens 1D in first chair (vulnerable against not), RHO passes and in your turn you pass. LHO balances 1S and partner bids 2S. What do you do?

You have to bid something? It sounds like he wants a suit from you. I bid 3C. Not bad so far but the torture is about to begin. Colin bids 3H. Sounds forcing. What does it mean?

At this point one of your opponents says that he has to go soon. Everyone is agreeable to quitting soon but when you suggest that now would be a good time. Colin shouts – after this hand.

Back to you…

I bid 3NT. If he is looking for a spade stopper I guess I have one. But in retrospect maybe 5D is better. It seems like he is 6-4 (why didn’t he just reverse? not forcing enough?) I got a heart lead and for a while it looked like this had a play.

Colin

S K H AKQ4 D AKJXXXX C 4

But the diamond queen didn’t come down so nothing really makes.

Well was I tortured or is this just “bridge”. You decide.