Curate's Egg by Foxymoron

In May 1895, the satirical British magazine Judy published a cartoon by artist Wilkerson, showing a timid curate and a fierce-looking bishop at breakfast in the bishop's house. The bishop says, "Dear me, I'm afraid your egg's not good!" The curate, desperate not to offend his host and superior, replies, "Oh, yes, my Lord, really – er – some parts of it are very good."

The expression "Curate's Egg" is now used for something which is "good in parts", and such was the case in our auction on the following interesting hand at the Wing Cup, an annual tournament in aid of the Alzheimer's Society at the Woodberry this week. As my mum died of that horrible illness, I always try to take part.

At our table, East opened a strong NT, West transferred to hearts, and East bid 2S. This, a transfer break, showed a maximum with four trumps. West continued with 3C, natural, and East bid 3H, waiting, and showing a stronger hand than 4H. Now West's 3S and East's 4D were cues, and West bid 4NT, Roman Key Card Blackwood. In my partnership with Leonid, West, we play what is called 1430, and my 5C bid showed 4 key cards. Now West asked for the queen of trumps with 5D and I denied it with 5H. West, looking at a possible trump loser, bid 6H which ended the auction. I might have bid 6D on the West hand, asking partner to choose between 6H and 6NT, but that is with a considerable amount of hindsight and there was no guarantee East would get that right. He should, with the fitting Qxx of clubs, choose 6NT. Maria and Derek Essen scored the top here when they sailed into 7NT and made it. Unfortunately, they did not do as well on the other 23 boards!

The play in 6H was interesting. South will lead the queen of diamonds, perhaps, and declarer wins with the ace and lays down the ace of hearts. When South drops the queen, it is right, according to the principle of restricted choice, to play for this to be a singleton rather than QJ doubleton, and all the declarers in slam made 13 tricks. They crossed to the ace of diamonds and finessed the nine of hearts, getting a good score. Strangely all the declarers who languished in game only made 12 tricks.