Today I went with four school pupils to Raymond's No Fear tournament at St Andrew Bridge Club. This is a tournament for beginners, with a mix of experienced players to help out. It's the first time that pupils in the school bridge club have played against adults.
There was some initial consternation when they were presented with scorecards, which to the uninitiated have a baffling array of options. We got over that and paired up, with me joining the S4 (age 15) pupil. On the very first board we had a mix-up, resulting in a highly unusual six overtricks:
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With 17 points my partner opened 1♦, and with 17 points I replied 1♥. To my surprise, this was passed out. At this point I could have said something, but held my tongue and played the hand. There are 12 top tricks (2+5+2+3) the only question is how to make the 13th. You could play for Clubs 3-3 or the Spade finesse, but instead I drew just two rounds of trumps then ruffed a Spade high, which works as long as Spades are 5-2 or better. It was a small victory though, as 1♥+6 was unlikely to be a good score.
After the hand Raymond suggested that we should have stopped the bidding and corrected North's Pass. However, I think we were correct to play the hand. Of course it gives a silly result and North-South get a very poor score, but that doesn't really matter. This was a vivid and memorable lesson in the perils of underbidding, and straight after the hand my partner was keen to know which bids were forcing. I said that "new suits are forcing, but bidding NT, supporting partner or rebidding your own suit are not. Also if the opponents interfere or partner is a Passed hand you don't need to bid again." Although that extremely condensed list would overwhelm most people she was used to my teaching style and I think took most of it in. We even managed to introduce Weak Twos, then later on when I made a dicey 2♠ overcall she asked why I hadn't just opened 2♠.
The other adults were delighted that the kids were there, and I was delighted that someone collectively referred to me and the pupils as being in the same generation.
Here's one we defended nicely:
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West opened 1♣ and my partner made a rather bold 1♦ overcall. I responded 1♠ and West redbid 1NT, showing 15-17. Of course this 1NT rebid should have shown 18-19 as partner was unable to respond; the 15-17 1NT rebid is only if your partner has 6+. I nearly came back in with 2♠ but I'm glad I passed.
The spotlight was now on North. She led a Spade, and I was thankful. Declarer won and lead a Heart, putting the spotlight back on partner, who once again found the best play of a second Spade. Although declarer was also able to win this when I got back in with ♥A I was able to rattle off four Spade tricks, which was a very visual demonstration of the benefit of playing a long suit in NT to establish it, even if it means losing a couple of tricks first. With the Clubs well placed we actually took ten tricks in defence, leaving declarer to suffer in 1NT-4.
My partner and I were not the top North-South pair, but one of our pupils was part of the top East-West pair. I defended one hand with her at the end, and she seemed to be paying no attention at all then suddenly claimed the last three tricks in defence, showing an excellent appreciation of which cards to keep and which ones had gone.
I enjoyed being declarer a few times myself as I've not played for six months (since the baby, pictured at the end of this post). I think the pupils enjoyed playing in a proper event, albeit a very relaxed one. And by the end of course they'd all mastered the score sheets, and were filling in the Opening Leads long after I'd stopped bothering.
I hope to go back in a few weeks with some other pupils, as they do seem to bring a lot of joy to the club. And from my experience they love the thrill of a competition (just like me). It's always tense wondering what's going to happen, and hoping for a good result. And the younger they get into it the better they'll be.
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