Accidents Happen

Accidents Happen

This deal was from the Orlando, 2016 NABC where I temporarily revived my partnership with Marty Bergen. Enough years have gone by to publish this embarrassing deal from my notes. In a team game, I dealt as South (neither side vulnerable) with:

QJ1092
♥ K109
♦ A543
♣ 8.

With that good 5-card suit and the beautiful 10-9's, I opened 1. LHO overcalled with a strong notrump and Marty jumped to 3NT. What's that? If he wanted to be in 3NT, he would have doubled. So, this must be some sort of raise? What page of the notes was this on, I wondered? I must have had a very confused look on my face. I retreated to 4 and everyone passed. A high club was led, and dummy surprised me:

K
♥ AQJ2
♦ QJ982
♣ Q43
QJ1092
♥ K109
♦ A543
♣ 8

Huh? It seems a penalty double wasn't available to Marty (it must have been on one of those pages of notes I hadn't fully comprehended). He had no forcing bids available, so bid what he thought he could make.

Had I been on the same page (pun intended), I would have passed and nothing good would have happened. The defense would have led clubs and we'd have no chance (losing 4 clubs and the A).

How about 4 with fewer trumps than our opponents? Let's take a look at the Real Deal:

Vul:South
DLr: None
K
♥ AQJ2
♦ QJ982
♣ Q43
A84
♥ 875
♦ K10
♣ AKJ92
7653
♥ 643
♦ 76
♣ 10765
QJ1092
♥ K109
♦ A543
♣ 8

West led a high club. What next? He tried another high club (which was as good a defense as any). I trumped and played a spade to the king which held. I came to the 10 and drove out the A. West played a club to dummy's queen, but I came to my hand and drew trumps (happy to find them 4-3). I had 10 tricks without the diamonds (4 in each major and 1 in each minor). Had West never continued clubs, I would make my 10 tricks by losing only the black aces and the K. 4 was undefeatable.

Bidding accidents usually lead to poor results, but in this case, luck was on our side. The 5-1 major-suit game was cold! Note: the more prosaic 4-3 heart fit would also have produced a makeable game.