The Americans experts are fond of saying that you don’t need a suit in the play if you show it in the bidding.

This ruse was put to good effect in the Kath Grimoldby Trophy multiple teams. The North-Souths of the two teams placed first and second at the end of the night (as the results were later to record) had to negotiate the following banana skin.....

South deals and opens 1D hoping for a 1S bid from partner who, of course, doesn’t oblige but instead bids 1NT. No problem. You have an 18 count and a good 5 card suit, so 3NT then?

But what are we going to use for Spades? North’s 1NT denies a 4-card Spade holding!

The two teams in question happened to comprise 4 of the 5 Doncaster Yorkshire League ‘A’ Team pairs. What was the likelihood of Ron Forshaw not finding a spade lead from AKTx after the auction
1D-1NT-3NT?

Accordingly one South proffered a bright red psyche of 2S with his Qx. Surely a heart lead is now cried out for?

This duly ensued and 12 tricks were quickly wrapped up by North, dummy not being required to play the suit he had shown in the bidding.

In the replay the auction 1D-1NT-2NT didn’t test East (Chris Quigley) quite so much who had laid down the Ace of Spades for a look! 2NT just made after the defence took 5 Spade tricks and a vulnerable game swing to the eventual competition winners.

The runners-up accepted this reverse with good humour and the ‘undone’ North even treated her opponents to her best impression of Nora Batty exclaiming,

“Well done but you’re weird you!”

Should West have been fooled?

Just what was South up to, opening a diamond then reversing into spades? Ostensibly, looking for his partner to show a stop in clubs or hearts, and then bidding 3NT anyway when North gives simple preference to South’s first bid suit?

Perhaps the sequence is somewhat unnatural but if South didn’t have Spades, and was gambling in Hearts, not Spades, then serious amount of egg on face if Hearts are not led.

As West (Ron Forshaw) pointed out at the table if he had chosen to lead a spade the text book card would have been the x and not the Ace. 13 tricks to North now! Happily Chris Quigley never was one for the text books.

David Beresford

As the contract of 5 Clubs has slightly better than a 66% chance of success it does seem odd that players seem intent on bashing out 3NT - even if it means devising ways of inhibiting a certain lead.This is arguably justifiable in a pairs event but  in a teams event where there is a viable alternative, the safer contract should be preferred.

Perhaps we are too heavily programmed mentally to the pairs game!