I enjoyed playing in the Surrey Mixed Pairs with my friend Guy Hart last Sunday. It was a friendly event, and Guy, with his frequent witty quips, makes me laugh more than anyone. We played pretty well (not too many mistakes), so I must admit we were disappointed with our below par result.
The thing is, the event was mixed in more ways than one: plenty of good players, but plenty of weak ones too. Poor players give out plenty of ‘gifts’, and if you’re not lucky enough to get any – and we weren’t – it’s hard to do well. Early on, for instance, we sat against a couple who announced that they were playing ‘three Weak Twos’. ‘What’s your strong bid?’ Guy asked. ‘Er… 3NT,’ said North. ’No other?’ Guy wondered. ‘Well, 4NT would be stronger.’ I admit, we metaphorically rubbed our hands together at the prospect of thrashing them. What hubris! We got a zero straight away (see diagram).
A confusing auction. West (Guy) led the ♦️Q. Declarer won in dummy and played a club to the ♣️10. Even when it wins, you still have a problem: with only one entry to dummy to lead clubs again, you need to first cash the ♠️K, cross to the ♥️K and cash the ♠️A in the hope East started with two spades. Bingo.
In fact what declarer did was cross to the ♥️K and play a club. I won with the ♣️A and continued a diamond. Had I played a spade, as perhaps I should, I would have broken up the squeeze. Declarer won with the ♦️A, and ran hearts and clubs, ending with ♠️K, ♦️10, ♣️2. Poor Guy was down to ♠️QJ ♦️J. On the last club, he was squeezed. He pitched the ♦️J and declarer, looking dumfounded, cashed the ♦️10.
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