Thursday, 28 April 2011

JOHNNY TAKES HIS HAT OFF.............................
Some players have a real flair for bidding. They visualise partner's hand to a tee, instantly recognising what's on. Indeed, many years ago I had the rare experience of being propelled into a slam missing 3 Aces ! Having arrived at 6D through a rapid bidding sequence ( which obviously bypassed blackwood ), I was initially shocked when dummy put down the follwing : (void )..... Qxxx.......AJxx....KQxxx
My aceless, but highly distributinal hand, was : KQJ10xx....x...KQ10xxx....(void )
So there I was on a combined 23 count in 6D with a few Aces to winkle out. Well the first one that appeared was the Ace of hearts, followed by the King which I ruffed in hand. A small spade at trick 3 was ruffed in dummy, and the King of clubs ( covered by the Ace ) was immediately ruffed with glee. The king of spades brought out the Ace, with dummy ruffing high. Trumps were drawn before claiming the rest.
My partner's 6D bid showed a superb analysis of the situation. He certainly knew I had a big 6-6-1-0 hand on my bidding, but it didn't matter whether my singleton was a heart or a club. Twelve tricks were always on, providing the spade suit behaved.
So when the scoresheet revealed we were the first pair to have bid the slam, I felt obliged to take my hat off to him.

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