The Fitzwilliam Pre-empter

Last night while directing in Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club bridge game I was drafted in to play as one mans partner failed to show. Now everyone in Dublin apart from one  knew this woman was on vacation in Morocco so she was unlikely to show up.

However our steely eyed man turned up in Fitzwilliam and set his steely left eye on me. Eamon sure you will play with me ... I got the go ahead from the boss so we played.

Now I am often pressed into service in this club as players often double book or their partner is sick but generally it is an accident and I don't want to send a chap or lady home without a game.
I just make myself available to help out and generally play a nice soft game but if an opponent puts it out there then a little more attention is paid.

So board 5 came along halfway thru our set at table 2 against Mr K and Ms W.
I am dealt a fine hand comprising of  82.. AKQJ73.. K7.. KQ9 in SHDC order ...
so I have 6 fine hearts and am getting my 1 Heart opening ready.

However partner is dealer and it goes PASS to Mr K who ponders a little .. so looks like I am not going to get to open 1Heart. ..

Mr K reaches into the bidding side of the bidding box and to my surprise places 3H opening bid on the table .... Well if Mr K has 7 card Hearts my hand is not going to go as well as expected and as it is
normal to pass when the opponents bid your best suit I quickly placed the PASS card on the table.

I suspect 90% of players will hmmm or haw for a while and give the game away or hope that opener looks down and indicates a mistaken bid. However the bidding continued with PASS PASS despite my hope for a double on the way out.

Declarer used up 2 small hearts early on and when I got back on lead after playing ACE of HEARTS and partner followed ..it was now a claimer as declarer was down to 4 trumps versus my AKQJxx..
so he was done like Seabiscuit ...

3H minus 5 ..was top score on the night ..

Now the Dealing machine was by no means finished with us lads yet

A lady was dealt AJT6 .. KQ986432 ... VOID and T ..

So 8 hearts and 4 spades and a singleton club.

Being dealer she opens 1H and her pard responds 2 Spades over the intervening 2 club overcall.

So 1H 2C 2S ...and our hero bids STOP 4H after some long thought ..

After the Ace of Clubs opening lead she received AJ7 of trumps in the dummy ..

Now the 2S bid normally shows 5 plus spades but our hero was happy enough to make same
tricks as 4S+2 ..

Now I don't agree with 2S bid or 4H bid ...
The 4H bid is more acceptable if partner can only have 4 card spades ...but anyone I know will have 5 or 6 spades for the 2S bid ....but I live in a parallel world ..

Another hand brought up one of my favourites ...the downgrade

I was dealer and was dealt a flat 12 count with 4333 distribution ... For many years especially in teams I have passed these type of hands as they are only worth about 10.5 hcp.
So last night I duly PASSED as dealer and vulnerable and the opps sailed into 3NT via a probable bidding misunderstanding ..

Opponent wondered at all the other kids declaring 1NT from the WEST hand going minus ..

On the above hand I launched the auction with a normal 2H weak opening bid .. Partner rose that to 6H and I mentioned his lack of Blackwood probably meant he owned all the aces ..

The point of mentioning this hand was that 4 pairs of 7 in total remained at the game level.
Seems my picture grab lopped off last two scores on each occasion ..

Anyway 13 tricks in hearts was easy with assistance of my CQ and DK ...

And there was more

Some fine shape here .. Our opps bid to 6D so we doubled that and I blew a trick for about the 5th
time in the night. Most of them did not matter but when my opponent on the bridgemate
forgot the DOUBLE .. This undertrick cost me a few matchpoints ...

However not to worry ...

Anyway my final exhibit from the Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club last night is

This hand saw us locate the 4-4 spade fit like normal people and later locate the 5-0 trump break which was dooming the contract. Playing manfully I managed to gather in 9 tricks and was surprised to find this was a poor score. Amazingly 3 declarers has found their way to 3NT and all made it despite the 5 club tricks for starters against them... BIZARRE ...

All the above boards turned up in a 21 board set that I dealt on the Fitzwilliam dealing machine before the game. Lots of distribution last night ...

Unfortunately the printer was out of ink so the players were unable to admire the great hands that
were dealt ..

Thanks
Eamon Galligan