The heading is half of the title of a famous book by the late Rixi Markus, one of England's best ever players, who rivalled Helen Sobel as possibly the best woman player in the world. The book is still available on Amazon.
Andrew Conway did not have the luxury of a safety play on a hand this week as he was in a grand slam. Some optimistic bidding had reached a poor contract, but he seized his only chance to make.
West, Conway, started with 1H, playing four-card majors, and North, Lamford, made an aggressive weak jump overcall of 3D. East, Verran, might have bid 4C but chose 4D and West bid Key Card Blackwood, 4NT. East showed two key cards with 5H and now West bid 5NT asking for kings. East bid 6D, a modern treatment of this convention, which either showed the king of diamonds OR showed the other two kings outside the trump suit. Knowing that they held all the aces and kings, Andrew decided that this was enough for grand and bid 7H.
Following traditional thinking, North led a trump to the ten and queen. Conway led another heart which went to the ace, and a third heart drew a disappointing seven from South. The diamond length suggested that South would have the longer hearts, but Andy looked deeper and rose with the king, dropping North's jack. There were two good reasons for this. Unless the queen of clubs dropped, West would have to ruff a club which he could not do if trumps were 4-2. In addition, if South had JT76 in hearts, he might have played the other honour on the first round - the principle of restricted choice.
When hearts were 3-3 and the queen of clubs dropped doubleton, Andy secured an unsurprising top for his 2210.
If North had not bid, then EW would have played quietly in 6NT, so Lamford was hoisted on his own petard by his weak jump overcall. This phrase, which indicates an ironic reversal or poetic justice, seems to have first occurred in Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4:
For 'tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petard; and 't shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines
Thank you Paul for your rather flattering description of our chaotic bidding leading to an unexpected top. One small point - I also bid 5NT asking for kings, and discovered that we held all Aces and Kings. I had assumed that Tony's 4D implied 4 card H support. Those two points led to my decision to bid the grand slam.
ReplyDeleteYes, I recall now. That makes 7H much more reasonable, and would have been good if Tony had four hearts, which I think he promises with 4D. Amended the blog.
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