It’s A Hard Life

By Brian Senior

Many people see the life of a bridge bum as one long holiday. Of course, these are people who have never actually played professionally themselves. While I have been to many countries for bridge tournaments and had a very pleasant time, there is also a considerably less glamorous side.

A couple of weeks ago there was a simultaneous pairs event in England. My wife, another bridge pro, had to go to a town about an hour’s drive away to play with one of her weaker clients. For obvious reasons he must remain anonymous, so let’s call him Tim. Alas, on the evening in question, my wife was ill and so, being a noble, self-sacrificing soul, I agreed to fill the gap. One deal summed up what we poor long-suffering pros have to handle.

I picked up a 4-4-3-2 23-count and opened 2§, receiving a 2ª, natural positive, response. Now we cannot use cuebidding in this partnership, and my wife insists that Tim has about a 30% success rate at giving the right response to Key Card (my previous experience suggests nearer to 50%, but you see the problem).

Nonetheless, Key Card seemed the most practical approach and I duly received a 5ª response, two plus the trump queen. Which was a bit of a worry, as I was looking at the trump queen myself.

Now you might try to convince me that Tim had great spade length, so was making an intelligent bid on the basis that the trump queen would not be required. Clearly, you have never played with a Tim.

After some thought, I came to the conclusion that the most likely explanation was that he was counting the trump king as an ace but responding as if to normal Blackwood, showing three aces. And so, after further contemplation, I jumped to 7NT. That passed off without even the tiniest of hitches from either opponent and so, as both appeared to still be awake, it was reasonable to conclude that at least no ace was missing.

Naturally enough, LHO asked some questions before leading and I told her that Tim had shown two key cards plus the queen of spades but that, as I held said queen myself, he had got something wrong. At which point, Tim butted in to say, ‘Oh, two with the queen, I meant two without the queen’.

That was not the greatest of news, as it was clear that we were missing the ªK and some luck would be required. But Tim put dummy down and it contained both missing aces and the king of trumps, giving me 14 top tricks and an 80% board.

So, our hero had forgotten to count the trump king as a key card, then forgotten the response to show two key cards without the queen of trumps. No, his comment about making the wrong response was not a joke. And you wonder why the average bridge pro is either losing their hair or at the very least going prematurely grey.