Ogdoads by Foxymoron

In Egyptian mythology, the Ogdoad (Ancient Egyptian: ḫmnyw, a plural of ḫmnw "eight") were eight primordial deities worshiped in Hermopolis. The question "what do you call an eight-card suit?" with the standard answer "trumps", post-dates that by about five thousand years, but there is an argument that an eight-card suit should still be called an ogdoad, now in the language as any set of eight similar things.

The chance of no eight-card suit in an evening of Woodberry bridge is around 71%, and the chance of exactly two eight-card suits is very small, about 4%, but this happened in last night's SIMs event, won by John Pemberton and Richard Creamer, raiders from the YC, although Woodberry members. The first eight-card suit was well-handled by most. Although Roly Harris gambled and lost.

When Robot East raised his metal brother to 3C, Roly had visions of a singleton club opposite. However, as Bob Hamman used to say, you should not play partner for perfect cards and 4S on the second round was enough. If Roly had bid 5S, asking for a club control, he would have survived, but Robot East had no difficulty leading its partner's suit against the slam. Not a bottom, as one South played in 4H on two rounds of clubs and a spade switch, cutting off the dummy. Despite this gift Robot and Robot only managed 48%

The second ogdoad was also interesting:

East opened 3C at Vampyr's table, and South found a reasonable double. North went for all the chocolate biscuits with 3NT and East had a difficult lead. I don't think maisymoo's choice of the jack of clubs was unreasonable but it allowed North to make ten tricks. It got worse for East-West when declarer won in dummy, ran the queen of diamonds and repeated the diamond finesse, West covering. Now North led the ten of spades, and East has to cover that to block the spades. When she played low, declarer had four spade tricks and could establish his eleventh trick in hearts. Most Easts opened 4C, which is "just right" as Goldilocks would say, and North-South got a solid 60% for just letting them play there, two off. There is always one overbidder, and this time it was Simon Batt who reached the giddy heights of 6C, doubled by South, and that might have been the national bottom, as it was a SIMs night. For the very good cause of Children in Need. The club gave the proceeds to the charity, and if you do want to make a donation, then you can go to the site at www.ecatsbridge.com