Wednesday 14 July 2021

A couple of bodges

Anna and I played our first competitive bridge for a month or two last Monday - the 12 board EBU evening tournament. We both did very poorly. Here's two bodges from me in defence:

I've got the big West hand. I doubled, and after Anna showed Spades decided to go straight to 4♠. This was due to go one down, but quite reasonably North bid on to 5♣. I was happy doubling this.

I led my King of Spades, and Anna showed odd count. That means she has five, so I know that no more Spades are cashing. The safe thing to do would be to switch to Hearts, and set up our trick there, to go with my Spade and the Ace of Diamonds. I got greedy though, wanting two Heart tricks, and continued Spades. The danger of this soon became apparent, as declarer drew trumps and set about playing Diamonds. Luckily Anna had the ♦T, so declarer couldn't quite get all of dummy's Hearts away and it finished one off.

Anna didn't notice my bodge there, or at least didn't say anything, perhaps as we got 83% for a rare good board. This one she did notice:

Defending 1NT we get off to a good start in Spades, and all I need to do is find an entry back to Anna's hand to beat the contract comfortably. However, as declarer ran the winning Diamonds I discarded down to ♣A so couldn't get over to Anna's hand, and declarer got three more Heart tricks than he should have. I was overly focused on keeping all my Hearts to match the Heart length in dummy, but (as Anna pointed out) that was pointless anyway as my Hearts were ♥A543.

We got 7% on the board and finished with 43% overall. Luckily our season is over, and Team Rowan finished top of the second division of the Glasgow League to gain promotion for next year.

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