The revenge of the grandmas

Martha, Esther, Sara and Miriam have been grandmothers for a long time already (Martha even has great grand children). They all play bridge at the local club in their little town, where they always play regular pair tourneys (top-bottom MPs).

One day, Sara told the other three: "Let's go to the bridge festival in the big city next week and join the teams contest."
"What's a team contest?" asked Miriam.
"I don't really know, but all four of us could form a team and we kind of compete against other teams. Also, the score is calculated in IMPs," said Sara.
"What's IMPs?" asked Martha.
"I'm not really sure about that either. But let's go there anyway. We change air, we get to play against other players. I'm sure we'll have fun, plus they will explain to us what we need to do. We can't do worse than last place, and if that happens, I'll go and hang the score upside down," said Sara and winked.

So they all went, laughing a lot on the way, and with no great expectations about the outcome, but still looking forward to the event.

They called their team "The Grandmas" and made Sara their captain (because she was captain of the water polo ladies team some 60 years before).

For their first match they had the misfortune of meeting a young USA team.

"What are you kids doing here? Instead of going to beach parties you play bridge?" asked Miriam amazed.

The Grandmas were blitzed on all the hands... except for this one:

Dealer South, all red


The 4♣ and 5♣ cue bids showed 1st and 2nd controls in club but also denied 1st and 2nd controls in spade (they show first control first, so with a 1st round control in spade they would have bid 3♠, and with a 2nd round control in spades, K or singleton, they would have bid 4♠). Given the biding, South had no problem to sign off in 5♦, realizing his opponents have 2 fast spade tricks off the top. Good bid, good contract, the best spot N-S could find.

Miriam, who understood nothing from the bidding (even though N-S alerted and explained patiently all their bids) decided to make a "normal" lead, she led the ♠3, 4th best, and defense won the first two tricks, then declarer claimed the rest. 5♦ just made.

At the other table, the bidding went "slightly" different:



"Uff, I can't handle these bids of yours!" said Martha in anger, and left the table for a smoke.

The young player sitting West thought for long before leading... a trump. Esther won the lead, pulled another round of trumps, played 4 rounds of hearts (JTx fell from East), she threw two spades from dummy and claimed 13 tricks.

"How many did you make?" asked Martha, back from her cigarette break.
"Seven," said Esther.
"Uff, I can't with you! Why didn't you bid SEVEN???"