Monday, May 27, 2013

A Traumatic Top

The weirdest top I’ve achieved came from this hand. I was in Holland playing in a local club with my wife's father. Any local club in Holland has a big bar in the center. You pick a drinking card and fill it during the game. The first round you start with coffee and then you move on to beer(s) and then stronger stuff. My father in law was a real drinker. His Bridge performance was in inverse ratio to his drinking... The last board of the tourney was this:



The bidding:



* Wake up!
** No bomb will wake me up

After my opponents found the diamond fit, I should have doubled. However, a quick glance at my partner proved that he was already half asleep (with much alcohol in his blood). I needed to find a bid to wake him up so I chose a cue bid of 3, which didn’t do the job as he passed with no hesitation. "Shall we close on 1 down?" I asked. "Ney (=No)", said my opponents, insensitive to my humor. They cross ruffed the first 8 tricks in the majors. As they had nothing more to ruff, they won only 2 more trump tricks and a club. 3 minus 7 was worth 350 points for them, a huge trauma for me and... a top for us! When we opened the score sheet we saw one score of 400 (5) and the rest were 550 (5 doubled).

"You don't stand a chance against our bidding system", muttered my partner in his sleep.

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