Catching Up with Sally Brock

We’ve been out and about quite a lot in the last few weeks. We went to Dawlish for the weekend to stay with my friend Gilly, her boyfriend Vas, daughter Mel and Mel’s friend Soozy. They usually let the house out but bookings have been down due to Covid and so it was available. It took about four hours to drive there on the Friday, and we just got there in time for an online session with my Dublin women. Then it was fish and chips for supper and we played cards (not bridge) into the wee hours. The following day we went to Exmouth by train and ferry, walked a long way and had lunch out before going to a favourite pub for dinner. On Sunday we went out and about, again by train and ferry, before going out to a fish restaurant for dinner. Such a treat to go to a restaurant. We stayed on till Monday – Indian takeaway this time – and again played cards into the small hours.

A few days afterwards, Briony and I went to Calais for an overnight visit. Pre-Lockdown we did this regularly, stocking up on wine and cheese and generally having a nice time together. We stay at the Hotel Meurice which, for the price, is my favourite hotel in the world! All very ornate, with excellent service, very good value (€62 for a double room), and a convenient location in the middle of town. We go out to a fish restaurant and discover that in France you have to wear a mask to go into a restaurant – they have them on sale for €1 if you don’t have one – and that you need to wear it to get to the table, and later if you want to get up – to go to the loo, for example – but you don’t have to wear it when you are seated. In the shops it was a bit variable. In my favourite cheese shop I was told a mask was ‘obligatoire’ and I could not put my hand anywhere near the glass counter, but in the chocolate shop or the wine shop no one was wearing a mask.

Otherwise the online bridge goes on. We played the last match in the Lockdown League, comfortably in the middle of the field – no chance of winning or being relegated. We had hopes of gaining on this board:

Dealer North. E/W Game.

What would you bid with that South hand after East opens with 1♦️? This was the auction at our table:

I led my singleton club, solving one of declarer’s problems, and the contract made with four over-tricks. In the other room the bidding was:

North’s 2♦️ cue-bid supposedly showed three-card heart support. As he couldn’t bid 1 NT without a diamond stopper, perhaps a simple raise to 2❤️ would have been about right?

South understandably thought North had a better hand and so, over 4❤️, he asked for key cards with 4 NT and bid the slam over the one key-card reply.

West led a diamond, ruffed by declarer. He then led a heart to the king and a heart back, capturing the queen with the ace. After that he led the ♣️ 7 to the king and finessed a club, ruffed by West. A second diamond was played, ruffed by declarer, and he drew the last trump.

At this point it was a question of how best to play the spade suit for no losers. In fact he had an inferential count: East was known to have started with two hearts, four clubs, presumably five diamonds and so only two spades. So the ♠️ A followed by a spade to the ten, the ♠️ K and another club finesse would have brought home the slam. However, declarer played for East to have the ♣️ J for his opening bid and the slam was one trick short. We lost 6 IMPs instead of gaining 13.

We played in other bridge events: we are not doing very well in the Midsummer Swiss Teams; I have started playing on Friday evenings, usually with Kitty (but I had one game with Olly) which is enjoyable (but rather slow); Barry and I both played in the YC’s Summer Party Individual – here they arranged each table to Zoom so it was very sociable – and we finished OK, but nothing special.

Chris and I scored well when we bid this slam: