Enfield Town

When Anna came to visit me this week I convinced her to come with me to the Enfield Town Monday night bridge club.

I'd not been for a while but people remembered me and had a few hellos. Then before we started to my surprise the scorer came over to us with a pound each - turned out we'd come top last time we were there - six months ago! The scorer had kept track and paid off his debt.

Me and Anna got all the cards. There were several slam deals. One we didn't bid when Anna has ♠ AKxxxxx ♥ x ♦ xx ♣ Kxx opposite my strong NT but took a pessimistic view. Then I got into 6♠. This was doubled, and I hoped that the doubler was only doing it because I'd doubled him the hand before. In fact he did have four decent trumps and took me down.

Then at last a slam we both bid and made. Me and Anna were bidding spades after an opponent overcalled 2♦. I had a diamond suit of ♦QJxx and had a punt at 6♠ without any cue bidding. Partner was strong, surely she'd have the ♦A or ♦K to cover me? In fact Anna had a Diamond singleton, which was enough, and the slam made. Afterwards we were congratulated for our fine bidding, but actually it was rather lucky.

It was full system on, Reverse Benji and all of Normam's gadgets, including Crowhurst of course. With both vulnerable East opened a weak 1NT and I had the South hand below, and lots of options. What would you bid?

Game NS E deal ♠ A J 6 ♥ J 8 5 3 ♦ T 9 5 ♣ Q 6 3 ♠ K Q T 7 5 3 ♥ 4 ♦ 6 ♣ A T 8 4 2

I decided to keep it simple and bid a direct 3♠, which Anna did well to pass. At the time I was fearful she'd think I was strong and raise me to game.

I was left to play in 3♠, and liked the look of it when dummy came down. After drawing trumps in two rounds, finishing in dummy, I considered the clubs. If I just had the Ace and Queen, in opposite hands, the right thing would be to cash the Ace then lead up to the Queen. With the Ace, Queen, Ten and Nine distributed between the two hands its best to finesse twice (learnt that from Norman). What I had was somewhere in between.

I ran the Queen, which covered by the King and Ace, then returned to dummy with my last trump and led up to the ♣T, where East put the Jack in. Just one club loser then and 3♠+1 was a good result.

Not sure how we did overall though, have to go back in six months to find out.