Five Bells
Do you remember when you used to stay up all night to play bridge? I have to confess it’s been a long time since those days. But on the 29th of December we had a wild group for the foursome. My son Colin who in those remembered days B.C. (before children) could play just about any game till the wee hours was playing me. And Ray was playing with Colin’s wife Luise who was a games-player too.
I have always been a night owl and I still stay up pretty late and I still love playing just about any game there is. For once, Ray turned off the Soccer Sports News to join us. Family fun.
Ray and I say that Colin has a cork-screw mind. We mean that he thinks about things in a different way than most people. He is fast and he is brilliant. And you just knew that a hand would come up that would give him a chance to shine.
Ray and I were ready to pack it in when this Colin was dealt this hand.
Colin held
He opened 1♥ and I bid 1♠ . Colin continued with 2♦ and I bid 3♣ which did not show clubs but did establish a game force. Colin could have bid 3NT which would have suggested 2-5-4-2 shape. But he had quite a bit extra for the auction so far. What should he do? He could bid 4NT which I think would be natural here since there is no trump suit established – but that takes up a lot of bidding space. He came up with the rather imaginative bid of 4♣ . I don’t think that it can be natural. After all, with 5-4-4 he would have bid 2♣ over 1♠ . Colin expects his partners to figure these things out.
Anyway I bid 4♥ showing belated heart support. In this auction I am likely to have three spades and a good hand (at least I thought so) since I could have supported hearts earlier if I just wanted to play a heart game. One thing I felt confident of was that if anyone could work their way around a complicated auction it was Colin.
The next bid was 4NT and I bid 5♦ showing 1 or 3 key cards. Colin’s 5♥ bid was to play only if I held the lower number. I cuebid 6♣ on the way to 6♥ . Now it was up to Colin. I had denied the ♠ K BUT my 5♣ bid suggested something extra in clubs which could only be the ♣ Q. But there was still a chance we had a diamond loser. Colin came up with another master bid, he cuebid the ♦ K. And I bid 7♥ .
A trump was lead and this was my hand. Colin drew two rounds of trump both following and then played the ♦ Q and ♦ A. If the ♦ J was doubleton Colin could have claimed. But when it didn’t he still had more chances. He left out the last trump and played the third top diamond. If diamonds were 3-3 it couldn’t be trumped and he could draw the last trump and the last diamond would provide trick thirteen. But if as on the actual deal diamonds were 4-2 then as long as the hand that held the doubleton diamonds also held the last trump he would be safe.
Here is the whole deal:
As Colin finished the hand the clocked sounded five… five rings of the clock’s bell, enough for one night even for the later owls.
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Bridge-related
Cute hand.
“Do you remember when you used to stay up all night to play bridge?”
I remember getting home from a Regional at 5 a.m., getting two hours sleep and getting up and going to work. I was a little younger then.
The North hand is the type that the modern 2/1 experts would respond 2C, thus establishing early the game force … and then after 2D-2H continuation, establishing the heart fit. That leaves lots of room for exploring the appropriate level.
On all-nighters, I recall some poker games that duration in college, and, while we then played some bridge in the fraternity house, none that lasted all night … as best I can recall.