6♥ redoubled just made – by two pairs! by Ace Ventura Perhaps the last board in the first session of the Mixed-Pairs Semifinal had the most exciting distribution in the set of 26 boards. Having the following interesting hand, what is your ideas when partner opens 1♥?   ♠ Q 9 7 ♥ A ♦ A K 9 7 ♣ K 8 6 4 2 The scoreboard produced quite a lot of different scores. Let’s see what happened at one table. Board 26. Dealer East. All Vul.   ♠ Q 9 7 ♥ A ♦ A K 9 7 ♣ K 8 6 4 2 ♠ A K J 6 5 3 ♥ J 6 5 4 2 ♦ 5 ♣ 10 ♠ - ♥ K Q 10 9 8 7 ♦ 4 2 ♣ A J 9 7 3   ♠ 10 8 4 2 ♥ 3 ♦ Q J 10 8 6 3 ♣ Q 5 West North East South De Falco Lambardi Olivieri von Arnim     1♥ Pass 2NT Dble 3♣ 4♠ Pass Pass 5♣ Pass 5♥ Dble All Pass   Italy ’s Dano de Falco started with 2NT game-forcing and Gabriella Olivieri’s 3♣ showed a minimum hand with any shortness. De Falco looked a bit surprised when the tray came with Daniela von Arnim’s bid: 4♠. If West draw trumps against 4♠ it’s likely to see the contract go down six! An old-fashioned penalty double by de Falco would probably have done the job since it’s unlikely that South moves to 5♦. In this modern world of crazy conventions de Falco had to pass, since a double would strongly have suggested a continuation of the auction. Pass was the best bid de Falco could produce but Olivieri did not – this time – have the hand to double and bid 5♣. De Falco shook his head and corrected to 5♥. Lambardi thought East/West were on thin ice and doubled. Von Arnim led a spade and now the ace of trumps was the only trick that was left for the defence. 5♥ doubled with one overtrick was worth 77% for East/West. North/South must have felt quite satisfied to receive 23%. At another table West had higher views: West North East South 1♥ Pass 2NT pass 3♣ Pass 4NT Pass 5♠ Pass Pass (!) Dble All Pass   Well, some sunny day East might have the necessary cards, but this was not the day. West asked for aces but then was in deep trouble when two aces were missing. He took a chance to find a spade-fit and passed 5♠. When North doubled West could reconsider. He knew that only a poor defence would save him in 6♥ so he instead hoped that North/South had misjudged the situation. They had not. When the smoke had cleared declarer was down for; North/South +1100. Do I need to tell the score was 100% (by a wide margin)… The Dutch pair Jet Pasman/Christoffer Niemeijer and the British pair Nevena Senior/Geoffrey Wolfarth both made 6♥ redoubled on spade leads. What a disappointment, to make a redoubled contract and not be the only one.

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