Team Rowan have enjoyed a strong second half to the season. We've had some promising results, even though we've still not actually won a game. Last Tuesday we had another shot at glory against the strong St. Mungo team from the Glasgow Bridge Centre. It was another close match, and another narrow loss.
Me and Anna had quite a good game against Les and Shirith. My two featured boards are both about ethics. In this first one, I was accidentally unethical by taking a long time to play a singleton. I was thinking about the whole hand and didn't realise until afterwards how misleading it was for me to take two minutes to play my only remaining Club from hand. Fortunately it didn't matter, as my long pause actually guided the defence and they took my down in a contract I could have made. This was the full deal and auction:
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I opened a 12-14 1NT and Anna went via Stayman then invited with 2NT. I had a maximum so bid the game. I;m in trouble on a Spade lead, but since I'd bid them West lead the ♣T. I won this with the ♣Q then lead a Heart, losing to the ♥A. East then returned the ♣J, and that's when I went into my long think, before playing my now singleton ♣2 from hand and also ducking in dummy. If I had of won this trick in dummy I could have actually made the contract, via two Clubs, two Hearts, one Spade and four Diamonds. I could still have made it if the defence continued Clubs, but because East thought I had another Club in hand he switched to a Spade, beating the contract. It was poetic justice for play both poor and unethical.
"You took a long time to play that singleton ♣2" East said afterwards, and I apologised.
At the half way mark the team was only a few hundred points behind. With everything to play for we all had a lemon tea and sat down for the second half.
Things started badly when I conservatively underbid to miss a slam (very unusual). We had a serious of good results, then on the very last deal I faced this ethical dilemma:
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I opened 2♣ and Anna replied 2♦, showing 5+ points. I showed my Hearts and Anna jumped to a natural but rather pessimistic 3NT. Undeterred, I pressed on with 4♣. It was the end of a long night and Anna didn't fancy raising Clubs either so bid 4♦, which was some sort of generic cue bid without actually knowing what trumps are. We have quite a lot of those sort of bids in our slam auctions, and at some point should really sort out what our bids mean after 3NT.
At this point, most of the other tables had finished, and were milling around near us. While I was thinking about Anna's 4♦ bid I distinctly overheard someone saying "6♥ makes, because the Ace of Spades is onside". It seemed pretty clear they were talking about this hand. The person I overheard was from the opposition team, if that has any bearing. I asked the group to talk elsewhere, but as they walked away I heard someone else (from our team this time) saying that opener only had 19 points. Surely they were talking about this hand too?
I now strongly suspected slam would make, through some very unauthorised information. I'm not sure what I would have bid otherwise, but knowing what I now did I bid a simple 4♥, leaving it up to Anna. I've probably bid enough anyway. Anna passed, West lead a Spade, the Ace of Spades was indeed onside and I made 12 tricks for 4♥+2.
In the end we lost by 600 points, a decent result against another strong team. Of course if me and Anna had of bid 6♥ (or 6♣) the match would have been won.
When you overhear a comment like this, you must always call the Director - in a league match this normally means the team captains. They would tell you to try and continue to play the board normally, but if you feel that this is impossible then they would assign you an adjusted score.
ReplyDeleteThe captains may well decide that there should be a procedural penalty against those discussing the board too loudly.