BRIDGE

I don’y know if legendary singer-songwriter Pete Seeger has ever played our game and I know for sure he has never written a bridge book, but one of his most famous lines ( from “Where Have All The Flowers Gone”) could be used as the motto for countless players.

The diagram’s auction started in routine fashion with a normal opening bid in five-card major style by East. Note: “Short Clubbers” might start with one club as they usually prefer four-plus diamonds for opening that suit but they’d be likely to miss the score bonanza this time.

Enter South with his unlovely overcall.

A mere five-card suit of no more than medium quality, not a great hand overall, weak length in opener’s suit and vulnerable with a passed-hand partner – call me conservative but not for me with that many negative factors as warning signs.

And when that overcall was passed round to East, he competed with a takeout double that West, the possessor of the good club intermediates, was totally pleased to pass to seek a penalty.

The penalty extracted was “only” 500 for the loss of one trick in each major, three diamonds and two clubs but that represented a considerable advance on the paltry part-score East-west might have made if left to themselves.

In a match, the unmolested East-west landed in two hearts and made nine tricks. Seeger’s inconic line? “When will they ever learn?”.

Footnote: wouldn’t you love to be the fourth on a team that made that song famous: Seeger, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan!