Duo takes first overall at Bridge Deck

A local pair turned up at the Bridge Deck this past week and proceeded to place first overall in the Wednesday afternoon duplicate game at the club in White Plains, N.Y.

Mary Scarfi and Lois Spagna used to dominate play at the Greenwich

YWCA’s now-defunct weekly duplicate game. And in previous years, the duo continuously finished in the top five of the YW’s annual Player of the Year contest.

Also continuing to do well at the Bridge Deck, as noted last week, is Linda Otness, who placed second overall in the game last Friday, April 29, partnered by Michael Zoulis, and finished first on Monday playing with Chuck Lamprey.

Today's quiz: We continue this week with the current series of quizzes on interpreting partner’s bids. In the following problem, you are given an auction accompanied by three hands, only one of which could actually fit the action your partner has taken. Which of the three hands do you think partner might have?

The bidding: Opponent-1D; You-1H; Opponent-Pass; Partner-Pass. Partner could hold:

a) S QJ843 H 62 D 954 C AJ3

b) S 52 H 6 D KQ10973

C J985

c) S A5 H 1073 D 8654 C KQ72

Answer: Because simple overcalls in a suit have a range of about 9 to 16 points and are always based on a strong five-card or longer suit, the rules governing responses to overcalls are completely different from those governing responses to opening bids. Thus, the partner of an overcaller usually either raises the overcaller’s suit or else passes unless there is a chance for game elsewhere or responder believes he has a longer and stronger suit of his own, in which case he could consider “correcting” the contract to his own suit (non-forcing).

In the given case, the only hand with which partner should pass your one-heart overcall would be hand a), where he knows there is no game and you are likely to have a stronger and possibly longer suit than his spade suit. With hand b), partner would correct your overcall to two diamonds, warning you that he does not like hearts and that he believes he has a longer and stronger suit than you have. After such as action, you would normally pass unless you had a very good hand containing diamond support.

Finally, with hand c), containing 10 points in high cards and distribution, partner would raise to two hearts rather than pass to allow you to bid again if you happen to have a maximum (15 or 16 points) overcall.