Thursday, July 29, 2010

A grand birthday for Kate

Tuesday was my bridge partner Kate's birthday. We met online to play bridge and vowed to bid a birthday grand slam -- all 13 tricks! Big talk, but could we do it?

On board #5, Kate held:
♠A K Q J 5 2 ♥A ♦A K 10 9 2 ♣5.

I opened 2♣ which showed 5+ clubs, 11 to 16 points and possibly a second suit. Kate responded 2♦, an artificial ask. I rebid 2♥showing a four-card suit (I could jump to 3♥ with five of them). Now what?

I don't think there's any good way to bid from here, so Kate bid 4NT and followed with 7♠. Here are all four hands:

♠ 9 8
♥ K 8 6 2
♦ 4
♣ A K 7 4 3 2
♠ 7 3 ♠ 10 6 4
♥ Q 10 7 5 4 ♥ J 9 3
♦ 8 ♦ Q J 7 6 5 3
♣ Q J 9 8 6 ♣ 10
♠ A K Q J 5 2
♥ A
♦ A K 10 9 2
♣ 5

West led the ♦8, a singleton! This has to be an awful lead. Does he really hope his partner will win the ace and give him a ruff? Haha.

Kate won and led a low diamond to ruff. West was now void, but couldn't beat my ♠9. Of course, I wouldn't have opened without that card, ahem. She now had 13 tricks: She took six spades, two hearts, two diamonds, two clubs and one ruff.

Plus 2210 was a nice birthday present for Kate worth 11.81 IMPs.

You can see all kinds of results on a deal like this, so I had to check. The board was played 79 times and a grand slam was bid and made 15 times. Three pairs went down in 7♠ and three went set in 7NT. One pair went set in 6♠, yikes! Three pairs played a spade partscore.

Results like this don't speak well for online bridge do they?

All the results are available here.

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