Just Cruisin’ Along
Just back from the third annual “Regional at Sea” bridge cruise. This year was with Audrey Grant and David Lindop, whereas the first two years were with Larry Cohen. Much bigger ship this year – the “Allure Of The Seas”, with 5000-6000 passegers. Learned a new bid, as in the following auction
Partner RHO Me LHO
1D 2C 2H DBL
I inquired what the double showed, received a pitying look, and had my question answered with the question “Have you ever heard of a negative double”? I opined that indeed I had heard of it somewhere, but was a little confused as to what suit(s) the double showed inasmuch as three suits had already been bid. RHO gave this considerable thought, while probably wondering how I had ever found my way to the playing site, and replied “Spades”. Did not then have the wherewithal to ask why LHO didn’t simply bid spades, as sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.
Also learned something about the laws of bridge I hadn’t known – was declaring a spade contract, and the opening lead by LHO was the ace of diamonds. I asked RHO what their agreement on leading from AK was, and before he could reply LHO loudly announced “You don’t have to answer that!”.
We lost a Swiss team match when our partners failed to make their 3NT contract. After comparing scores, I gently inquired what the problem had been, and was told “Unfortunately I received a spade lead which I had to win as my king was the only honour I had”. On taking the hands out of the box to have a look, I found them to be
Dummy xxx Axx KQx AQxx
Declarer Kxx xxx Axxx KJx
I ventured the opinion that perhaps rather than being the undoing of the hand, the opening lead of a spade had been a gift from the bridge gods, as there were now nine top tricks. Declarer gave this a lot of thought before ruefully concluding “I think I should have made it”.
All in all, great fun! But a shame that next year’s date will be December 16-23 – Ho, Ho, Ho!
And congratulations to our good friends, Ed and Jeanne Lucas from Arizona, who topped the masterpoint winners list with 60.09. Well done!
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Bridge-related
There is a convention called “Snapdragon” in which the double after three suits have been bid shows the fourth suit with tolerance for partner’s suit, and the direct bid shows shortness in partner’s suit. Sounds like that’s a bit more advanced than your opponents here were thinking of, though.
playing with interesting people happens all the time to all of us 🙂 don’t let em spoil your day.
-Yuanxi
“I asked RHO what their agreement on leading from AK was, and before he could reply LHO loudly announced “You don’t have to answer that!”.”
This is new to me, were they saying you can ask about their lead agreements in general but not about a specific situation. Suppose there is QTx in dummy and the lead of an A specifically denies the K, I think you’re entitled to know that.