There are some sequences that are pretty rare in Bridge. Eszter and I experienced two of these curios in quick succession during our session today:
Hand 1: NS Game, Dealer NorthImagine you are West, holding:
West KQ109
KQJ1086
A
AQ
Poor West, I had to feel for them afterwards. He was probably salivating over the prospects for this hand...
...until South (me) opened 1
in front of him. He doubled and Eszter found a MOTOR transfer to Diamonds:
BiddingNorth East South WestNo No 1
X
2
(1) No 2
??
Poor West! There is no 100% route open to them. As it happens his Partner has
Jxxxx (and little else) and decided they didn't have enough to bid over 2
. West tried bidding 2
at this point, which I would take as a GF cue with a monster 3-suiter, but East just took it as natural and passed it (with a singleton in Hearts, that's not totally unreasonable). 4 of either Major is cold as the cards lie, and 2
+2 was a pretty good result for North/South. Even West passing 1
would have been a significantly better result (-3) at this vulnerability.
Two hands later, we ran into another curio:
Hand 2: Game All, Dealer SouthThis time you are East:
East Q8
AK1062
A32
QJ9
After two passes, North opens 1
in front of you. You try 1NT, South passes, and West bids 2
, a transfer to Spades. It's a no-brainer to complete the transfer (after all, Partner might be void in Hearts), but East fancied his chances and
passed the 2
bid.
In fact, 2
also runs into problems, because South has 5 of them and the defence get off to a really good start with Ace and another Club to North's King and a Club ruff, followed by a Diamond. 2
was also not a great success. Eszter didn't find the absolutely killing lead of a small Club and instead led a Spade, but even so Declarer was -2 by the end.