Bridge

Post-mortem

Opening lead — seven of hearts.

This deal reportedly occurred in England some years ago during a match between two teams of medical students.

At the first table, South wound up playing at two notrump doubled after the bidding shown. North’s twonotrump bid will most likely be regarded by many readers as a strange distortion of his values, but ours is not to reason why — we merely report what happened.

East had good reason to doubt South’s ability to make two notrump, so he doubled. Apparently, the standard of play was much higher than the standard of bidding, because the defence proceeded to function perfectly and exacted the maximum penalty.

East won the heart lead with the ace, cashed five spade tricks, then returned a heart, through declarer’s Q-10. The defence thus scored the first 12 tricks, and South finished down 2,000.

There must have been something peculiar about the North hand that appealed more to the medical eye than it would to most others, because the bidding at the second table took this exotic turn:

East thought it unlikely that three spades could be made, so he doubled when that contract rolled around to him. After leading the ace of hearts, he cashed the A-K-Q-J of trump and played another heart. When the smoke cleared, the autopsy revealed that South had gone down eight — 2,400 points, including East’s 100 honors.

Thus, the North-South pair that went down “only” 2,000 at the first table gained 400 points on the deal! Our source does not reveal whether they viewed the operation as a success, but they obviously bid the hand better than the North-South pair at the other table! —