OCP Forums
General Bridge Discussion => Interesting Play Hands => Topic started by: OliverC on January 01, 2018, 04:28:31 PM
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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 North
Imagine you are West, holding:
West
!S KQ109
!H KQJ1086
!D A
!C 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 !H in front of him. He doubled and Eszter found a MOTOR transfer to Diamonds:
Bidding
North East South West
No No 1 !H X
2 !C (1) No 2 !D ??
Poor West! There is no 100% route open to them. As it happens his Partner has !S Jxxxx (and little else) and decided they didn't have enough to bid over 2 !C . West tried bidding 2 !H 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 !H +2 was a pretty good result for North/South. Even West passing 1 !H would have been a significantly better result (-3) at this vulnerability.
Two hands later, we ran into another curio:
Hand 2: Game All, Dealer South
This time you are East:
East
!S Q8
!H AK1062
!D A32
!C QJ9
After two passes, North opens 1 !H in front of you. You try 1NT, South passes, and West bids 2 !H , 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 !H bid.
In fact, 2 !S 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 !H 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.