Contract Bridge

It is difficult to visualize a national team-of-four championship with hundreds of teams participating. Yet that is precisely what happens every year when the American Contract Bridge League conducts its annual Grand National Teams tournament.

Eventually, after many months of play, the field is reduced to two survivors playing for the national championship. That was the scenario back in 1977, when a group from Texas and another from Washington, D.C., faced off in a 96-deal match.

The Texas team won that year’s event but did not exactly overwhelm its opponents. The final score was Texas 100 (International Match Points), Washington 99! Considering the number of deals played, this was a remarkably low score, reflecting a very high caliber of play by both sides.

The bidding shown here is typical of the excellent form shown by the two teams. At both tables, South employed the Grand Slam Force convention by leaping to five notrump after North had bid two diamonds over West’s one-spade overcall.

Five notrump asked North to bid seven diamonds if he had two of the three top diamond honors. Both Norths dutifully bid seven diamonds, and there is no doubt that they would have made the grand slam and scored 2,140 points had the bidding ended then and there.

But at both tables, EastWest refused to quit at this point! Both Easts bid seven spades, convinced that they would lose less points at that contract — even though doubled and vulnerable — than they would if they allowed North to play seven diamonds. Both East-West pairs then went down five, losing “only” 1,400 points instead of 2,140, and the deal was a washout!