The Swan

For several years Ray and I have hosted a dinner party on New Year’s Eve.  Luise and Colin, Margaret and Fred Lerner and David and Barbara Silver are frequent guests.  This year after dinner a foursome sat down to play a few hands of bridge.  Fred Lerner, who has a license plate  “I DBL U” was playing with Colin and David Silver was playing with Ray.  The women were in the den watching a movie. 

I had just finished cleaning up the dinner dishes and sat down behind David Silver to watch some deals.   David Silver’s alter ego is Professor Silver.  Professor Silver appears as the hero in all of David’s humorous books.  On this deal I think it was Professor Silver who did the bidding.

Both vulnerable, Colin dealt as East and passed

David held:

 

 

Looking at his cards I thought about whether an opening bid of 1♠  or 4♠  was best.  Being in second chair with a side heart suit I probably would have chosen 1♠ .  But Professor Silver made a very unexpected call: he opened 1♥ .  Those familiar with Professor Silver’s many writings will know that he believes in the supremacy of the heart suit and the need to bid it before the opponents can.  Even if you follow this approach on this hand, the bid was a bit of a shock to me given that his FOUR-card heart suit was rather weak and he did have a fine SEVEN-card spade suit.  

East- West were silent throughout the auction except for Colin’s request for more port.  Ray bid 2NT which they had agreed showed a 16+hand with 4 or more hearts.  David bid three clubs showing club shortness and slam interest,  and Ray cuebid his ♠ K.  David cuebid the ♦ K.  At this point Ray just bid Keycard Blackwood and David’s jump to 6♣  showed one keycard and a club void.  Off an ace Ray finished the auction by bidding the small slam in hearts.

This was the complete auction

 

Fred led the ♣ 2 and this was the dummy.   

 

 

Professor Silver played the hand perfectly.  At trick one he went up with the ♣ A throwing a diamond.  He led the ♥ A and when Colin threw a club on this he thought for a while before playing the ♥ 7.  The Professor played two rounds of spades ending in his hand and was pleased to see Fred follow to both of them.  When Silver played the third round of spades Fred ruffed.  The Professor overruffed high and claimed.  Once Fred had shortened his trumps, David had enough trumps in hand to draw all of Fred’s,  after which it was simply a matter of taking his spade tricks to make his contract.

 

Here is the whole hand:

 

 

“Curious hand,” said the Professor.  “Playing in spades from my hand an opening heart ruff will defeat the contract two tricks, as the defense can then capture two diamond tricks.  Playing spades from Ray’s side a diamond lead followed by a club ruff will also lead to down two.  Even if we eschew the 9-card spade fit to play in hearts the slam must be played from my side to ensure success as otherwise a diamond lead through my ♦ K will be fatal.”

“The late great Ely Culbertson named this pattern a swan because the 7-4-1-1 resembles the elegant shape of a swan with the 7-card suit being the long neck.  Ely also said that you should ignore a 4-4 fit if you had one and play in the 7-card suit.  Ely, of course, died too early to read my ground-breaking work on the supremacy of the heart suit or he would know that if you want the swan to swim in safe waters you should be careful not to ignore the importance of hearts.”

Colin looked at David and pointed out that the hand really wasn’t quite a swan since David was not 7-4-1-1.

“Never mind,” said the Professor.