General Bridge Discussion > Interesting Play Hands

A Nice Burns Law Violation

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OliverC:
Metin and I had a chuckle about this hand, which played quite nicely (with a little help from Opps): You're North, the Dealer, with NS Vulnerable. You open 1 !D (Complex Sys) and this is passed out. East leads the !H King and this is what you can see:

South (Dummy)
!S J642
!H 86
!D 102
!C KQJ42

!H King led

North
!S 105
!H A95
!D A95
!C A8763

Not promising - this could easily end up as -3 if Opps attack trumps.

Metin took the first trick and exited with a Heart. East won and obligingly continued the suit, allowing Dummy to ruff. Metin exited with a small Spade to his 10 and East's King. East even more obligingly played a 4th round of Hearts allowing Dummy to ruff and Declarer to discard his other losing Spade.

Now a Spade ruff, a Club to Dummy's King and a second Spade ruff allowed Metin to make every single one of his trumps separately. That rare score of +70 was worth 2.2 IMPs even though 3 !C is trivially easy, because 10 tricks in Hearts are fairly easy for EW whether they bid game or not.

Ok, this needed a lot of help from East but there is something very pleasing about escaping the hangman :)

brian_m:
It's a shame there's not a way to fit the old Blue Club style 1NT opener into Precision, where 1NT was either the genuine 1NT or the 'other' range with a 5 card  !C suit (in the case of Blue Club, that was always 12-14, as the genuine NT was 15-17 bal).

The problem is that it would totally bugger the system of transfers (and the 2-way 2 !D) so there's no possible case to be made for it.

The occasional Burn's Law violation , sometimes spectacular violations against opponents who know what they're doing, are the price to be paid for playing Precision or similar systems.

I still claim at least a joint share of the ultimate, unbeatable record for a Burn's Law violation for playing 2 !D, undoubled (because opps knew I would likely escape) and at adverse, with not one diamond in either hand, and getting a good score for ending up with zero tricks in 2 !D-8 (-800) when opponents had 6 !D cold their way for +920. The culprit was an Amsbury sequence

(1 !C)-2 !D-all pass

1 !C Precision (including, as it turned out, a six card  !D suit)

2 !D showed a weak jump in  !D OR a 3-suiter short  !D OR a major 2-suiter.

My LHO had the other seven  !D, and passed, hoping for a takeout double from her partner.

My partner looked at her  !D void and decided I had to have the WJO in  !D, so she passed

Opener looked at his 6-card  !D suit, assumed that his partner had a weak hand rather than a trap pass, and at the vulnerability decided to play for 100s, as his double would have been for takeout and would also have let me escape if I didn't hold the WJO in  !D.

 ;D

OliverC:
I concede defeat :)


It is one of the really nice things about gadgets such as Amsbury and Panama, because Opps either have to allow you to escape undoubled, or give you a chance to get into something better by doubling.

brian_m:
The hand was in a duplicate at Stratford-on-Avon BC, when I still lived in the UK. Not surprisingly, we got a visit from the TD on the following round because the next table just couldn't believe the contract. We'd been waiting for the TD call.  ::)

When I told him what had happened, the (playing) TD probably violated Law on providing UI (can a TD's announcement provide UI? Interesting theoretical question...) by telling the room there was a very unusual contract on board number whatever it was, the entry on the traveller was correct, and please don't call him to query it! 

I can't honestly say I blamed him...  ;D

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