Contract Bridge

The Hand That Never Was

The scene was Monte Carlo in 1976. Italy, the favorite, was playing Brazil in an early round of the World Bridge Olympiad. Forty-five nations were entered in the event.

Pedro Assumpcao was North for Brazil and Gabriel Chagas South when this deal occurred. The opening notrump bid showed 13 to 15 points, and two clubs was Stayman, indicating interest in a major. Two diamonds denied a four-card major, and three clubs by North was also an artificial bid, asking South to pinpoint his distribution.

Three hearts announced precisely 2-3-4-4 distribution, and North — knowing that his partner also had only a doubleton spade — decided to take his chances in a 4-3 heart fit rather than in notrump.

So, while the overwhelming majority of the 44 other NorthSouth pairs floundered in three notrump and went down one after the automatic spade lead, Assumpcao and Chagas found the best game contract of four hearts and easily made it after West led the ace and another spade.

It was clearly one of the bestbid hands of the tournament, but, unfortunately, there was an ironic twist. It turned out that their Brazilian teammates at the other table had been incorrectly seated North-South in the 30-board match, instead of East-West, and the entire match had to be canceled — even though the Brazilians had soundly trounced their world-famous Italian opponents at both tables.

Instead of replaying the match, which would be normal in such circumstances, the authorities decided to award each team an above-average score. Although this was somewhat unfair — especially to the Brazilians, who had played so well — justice was served in the end when Brazil wound up winning the Olympiad and its first world championship.