I was raised (and learned to play bridge) in Toledo, OH. The Sunday bridge column in that city's paper, The Blade, is written by Gene Benedict of Toledo, who for many years lived and played bridge in the Cleveland area. While talking at a tournament recently, we thought it might be fun to trade columns. Accordingly, todays column is: "The Tale of the New Partnership" By GENE BENEDICT Both sides vulnerable. West deals.
Opening Lead: D2
I was playing with a new partner, Keith Woolf of Mentor, in a flight A team event at the 1993 All American Regional Bridge Tournament in Independence when this hand came up. A bidding mis-understanding (not unusual when a new partnership is involved) brought about the diamond grand slam.
If you find the bidding confusing, so did the players at the table. South did not want to give up on slam at his second turn to call and so bid three diamonds in order to get more information out of partner. When North raised, South should more than likely have bid five diamonds to get out at game. Instead, he rebid his seven card club suit. North interpreted this as a cue bid and so cue bid the ace of spades in return.
Still trying to get out of the auction, South bid five no trump. North, of course, recognized this as the Grand Slam Force and leaped to seven diamonds.
West led the two of diamonds (a trump is often the best lead when the contract is placed in the third or fourth bid suit). South won the diamond nine, finessed the spade queen and ruffed a spade with the diamond six. The ace of hearts was cashed and a heart led to the king. Another spade was ruffed with the diamond ace. South cashed the ace of clubs, pitching a heart from dummy. A club was ruffed with the jack of diamonds and the king and queen of diamonds were cashed. When trumps broke evenly the grand slam rolled home.
How good was the grand slam? The spade finesse was 50% and the suit had to divide 4-3, a 62% chance. A 3-3 diamond break is 36%. And finally, hearts must break no worse than 5-2, a 93% chance. Taking all this into consideration, the slam will be successful 10.3% of the time.
After the round was over, Woolf and I returned to our home table to compare scores. Teammate Dick Fleischman of Shaker Heights greeted us by asking "The opponents bid seven diamonds, what did you guys do?"
Fleischman was using an old ploy. When you have so-so results, go on the attack and put your teammates on the defensive. His analytical mind reasoned that the chances of anyone bidding seven diamonds on a 4-3 fit with only 31 high card points was ridiculous. In fact, his opponents had bid three no trump on the North-South cards and made an over trick for a score of plus six hundred thirty points.
I told him that the board was a push because we had bid and made seven diamonds. Momentarily stunned, Fleischman wanted to know how the bidding and play went. And so, a column was created. ---------------------------------------------------------------------