Just like you, just like me

The great thing about playing in a bridge festival is that anyone can attend and play against top players, including players from all over the world. Israeli players are not "very shy", and are known to "move right forward" in conversations.

Here is an example from one of the festival tourneys, where a common player, after having just arrived to the table of a guest from abroad, a former world champion, started "firing" as if they were old friends. (This top player being very modest wanted to remain anonymous, so we'll just call him "Joe"):

"Hey Joe, what's up? Say you hold ♠Jxxxx ♥J ♦AQJxx ♣xx. What do you open?" asks the player.
"I'd pass," says Joe.
"What??? Come on, be serious... With such a fine distribution, using the rule of 20, I opened 1♠. Partner bid 3NT. What do you bid now?," continued the player.
"I pass again," answered Joe.
"What??? But this hand is not suitable for NT. I bid 4♦ here, which got doubled, partner corrected to 4♠, which got doubled again. What do you bid now?"
"Pass," says Joe patiently, for the 3rd time.
"Exactly!  I passed too, just like you."

He turned to his partner and said: "You see, Joe is Pass, just like me, and just like me will go down on this hand." As the point was made very clear, the conversation was over, and everyone took the cards from the board:

Dealer South, all vulnerable.

Joe lead the ♦K and our hero in South won in dummy and threw a heart from hand. After pulling out 2 rounds of trumps he tried the ♣A, and continued with the ♣10, but East covered with the ♣J, and finally the defense had a club trick to set the grand slam by 1 trick.

"Why did you not settle for 6♠? You knew from the bidding that it is very likely for the clubs to split badly," shouted  the chatty one at his partner.

After some loud talk and mutual accusations between the opponents, "our hero" turned to Joe and asked:

"Would you have bid like my partner?"

Finally, being given a real chance to talk for the first time, Joe said: "No, I would have bid 3♥ instead of double, which shows support in spades and a good hand. But after that, just like your partner, I'd bid the grand. And... I would also make it. Just throw a club from hand at trick 1, not a heart. After drawing trumps, cash ♣AKQ, ruff the 4th club, go back to dummy on trumps or on the ♥A and throw your heart loser on the 5th club."