This hand took place at the North American Bridge Championships last month in New York. I held the North cards and my partner, sitting South, was John Majors of New York. The event was the Daylight Open Pairs on July 17.
Majors opened the bidding with one club and I was stuck. In our system, two clubs and three clubs were not forcing. I did not hold a four card major and while I certainly had good hearts I felt that I would not be comfortable making a bid that promised a four card major suit.
Our agreements about no trump bids after one club were pretty restrictive. One no trump showed 6 to 9. Two no trump showed 10 to 12, and three no trump showed 13 to 15. I held seventeen high card points and two little diamonds.
It seemed that the only forcing bid I had was one diamond. The hand appeared to be headed for a no trump contract and the one diamond call would certainly elicit additional information from my partner and may also inhibit a diamond lead. I made my bid for better or worse.
Partner bid one no trump showing a balanced hand with less than 15 points. I raised to three no trump and West led the seven of spades.
When I put the dummy on the table both opponents examined the diamond holding. Majors won the spade lead in hand and led a club to the ace, catching the singleton king. It was hard to read the opponents reaction, but it was not happy. Majors cashed the queen of clubs and gave up a club to the jack. He won the spade continuation and made eleven tricks, losing a diamond at the end.
Looking at all four hands, the result did not seem out of line. The opponents asked Majors how he had interpreted the one diamond bid and he said that he assumed it was natural but when the dummy came down he realized that I was just trying to make a forcing bid. When the scores came in, +460 was worth eleven out of twelve possible matchpoints. I don't think that the bidding had much to do with the score. The fine safety play of the ace of clubs by Majors, holding the club losers to only one, was the reason for the good result.
Our two session total of 352.5 (average was 312) left us one match point short of the overall awards, but made for a very nice day of bridge, none the less.
Unit 125 of the American Contract Bridge League will host the Silver Bowl Sectional Bridge Tournament starting next Friday at the Solon Valley Pary Center, 6340 Melbury, Solon. Single session stratified events for players at all levels will be held at 1:30 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Stratum A will be restricted to players with more than 1,500 master points. The master point range for Stratum B will be 750 to 1,500, and for Stratum C, 0 to 750.
A two session Open Pair event will start at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday. The second session will start at 3:30 p.m. This event will be stratified. Stratum A1 will be for players with 2,000 master points or more and Stratum A2 will be for players with less than 2,000 master points. Single session stratified events will be held at the same times for Stratum B (500 to 1,500 master points) and Stratum C (0 to 500 master points).
Separate events will also be held on Friday and Saturday for players with less than 300 master points.
Team events for players of all levels will start at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday.
Additional information and partnership assistance is
available by calling 440-248-3983. The Unit 125 web site can be
found at http://www.whistclub.org
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Bernstein is
a free-lance writer in Solon.