The Bird Knows Best

On the 28^th of December our foursome for bridge included my friend Maureen.  Maureen is a talker.  She could be playing in the most important bridge game ever and she would still chatter away.  She was playing with my husband, Ray.

I was playing with my brother-in-law Mark.  Mark has had a distinguished career as a vet.  He was actually chosen the 2012 Canadian Vet of the Year.   He has now gone over to “the dark side” and is a consultant for a big multinational drug conglomerate.  Whenever I ask him for medical advice Ray says I have to bark first.

We were playing at Maureen’s place.  Her house is as cheerful as she it, with all the right touches.  Lately she has added a parrot as a pet.  While the pet does talk, Maureen assured us that his bridge skills are very poor.

Mark held the following hand:

 

 

He opened 1♠  and Ray sitting on Mark’s left passed.  Maureen who had been chatting with me about our recent home renovation stopped long enough to look at her cards and bid 1NT.  They were playing 2/1 which meant that this bid was forcing.

Mark had one of those awkward 2/1 bids and made the system bid of 2♣ , which did not say much about his hand.  It just showed two or more clubs and nothing better to bid.  It was up to Maureen now.  Marueen bid 3♠  showing a three card limit raise in spades and it was now up to Mark to decide whether to bid the game.

He started to think.  The bird behind him who had been chattering all evening was strangely quiet too.  Mark did have a little extra but he also had a flattish with poor spot cards and he knew that Maureen only had three trump.  He was still thinking a few minutes later when the parrot started to squawk again.  He distinctly heard the parrot say “four”.  So did everybody else.  In fact, Ray sitting on Mark’s left, thinking Mark had bid game, passed.  Mark pointed out that it was the parrot who had actually bid “four”.  But in the end decided to take the parrots advice and with a “What the hey!” bid the spades game.   The ♦ 9 was lead and this is what he saw.

 

 

What a clever bird!  Prospects were great.   In fact, looking at the dummy there was a good chance for making twelve tricks in spades, if the finesse was onside.  Mark would have five spades tricks, five heart tricks and two aces. 

Mark played quickly.  He rose on the ♦ A and play the ♠ 10 from dummy running in  when I played low.  Ray won the ♠ Q and returned the ♦ 8.  I played the ♦ J which won the trick and returned a heart and Ray ruffed this!  There was no place for Mark to discard two clubs from his hand with hearts breaking so badly and so he still had to lose a club trick too.  Down one.  

This was the whole hand:

 

 

Mark had to confess that the “4-calling parrot” was right to bid the game.  But unfortunately had not provided advice on how to play the hand.