Bowring Institute, a social and cultural club in the heart of Bangalore, has the distinction of holding duplicate bridge for longer years with regularity as compared to other clubs in the city. The club also organises interclub bridge tournaments, which attract players from different clubs in and around the city, adding colour to duplicate bridge event says a senior bridge player of the club. "An interesting hand, which was played sometime ago by leading city bridge player, has been the talk of the town for its very unusual result", he added.

The controversial deal between the players of Bowring Institute and a bridge club in the vicinity of the city is reproduced below:

Precision club system artificial club opening showing 16 points and above

When the East opened one club the south having 15 points and absolute suit of clubs was in a fix as to make an appropriate bid because overcall of double conveys a different message and likewise two club bid was not in tune with standard bidding practice. Therefore the East elected to bid 3 no trumps to disallow the west to enter the bidding. After this bid the West having no specific feature except heart suit passed, North also passed but East doubled again forcing his partner to offer a bid which he declined and subsequently all other players passed.

West led Queen of spades

On the lead of Queen the East played the Ace of hearts which dropped the singleton King held by South

East played the King of spades on which East gave a signal of four cards of the suit.

Next East returned a heart to the West, after cashing all the six hearts the defence shifted to spades suit as shown in the diagram. The Queen dropped under the Ace of spades and therefore the defence made all five tricks in the suit, and finally cashed the ace, King of diamond bringing all the thirteen tricks to the defenders to the utter dismay of the declarer for a negative score 2600 points.

This deal invited comments from different people as to be the correct defensive bid but any other bid by the South would have gone down by at least two tricks. Hence the overcall in this particular situation should have been avoided particularly in vulnerable position.

THE BIDDING:

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East     South     West     North

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C(1)     3NT       Pass      Pass

Db1      Pass      Pass      Pass

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Dealer East

North-South Vulnerable

North    West      East     South

S 109    S 7643    S AKJ85  S Q2

H 964    H QJ10875 H A32    H K

D QJ185  D 964     D AK3    D 1082

C 9875   C Void    C 102    C AKQJ643

GOLDEN TIPS:

It is not easy to resist temptation of making a bid with the hand having 15 high called points with a long minor suit.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2005