The Bermuda Sectional started at the Bridge Club yesterday afternoon and will end on Friday night with the second session of the Pairs and the closing prizegiving function. More news on all of that and full results in next week’s column!

The IBPA (International Bridge Press Association) announced its annual awards this week for the top players in the game, best played hand, best defence and best bid hand of the year. This hand, deservedly, won the Best Bid hand of the year and was reported by John Carruthers of Kingsville, Ontario.

The sequence is complicated and I usually avoid complicated bidding or play hands in this column, but there is much to learn from it and if all it does is give you a glimpse of how good the top pairs are and have you marvel at their accuracy, that is fine for me. I’ll hand over to John!

“One of the most difficult tasks to accomplish in bidding is to agree one suit, especially a major, then bid a slam in another suit. Michael Rosenberg and Zia Mahmood, playing in the USA1 team, did just that in their round-robin match against England, and it wasn’t just a small slam, but a grand:

Board 21. Dealer North. NS Vul.

North:

S J3

H K102

D 876

C AQJ65

East:

S Q62

H J87

D KQJ93

C 105

South:

S 84

H 964

D 105

C K98732

West:

S AK10875

H AQ53

D A42

C None

West, Mahmood

1S

2NT(2)

4D(4)

4NT(5)

5H(7)

7C(9)

Pass

North, Price

Pass

Pass

Pass

Pass

Pass

Pass

Pass

Pass

East, Rosenberg

Pass

2C(1)

3D(3)

4S

5C(6)

6D(8)

7D

South, Simpson

Pass

Pass

Pass

Pass

Pass

Pass

Pass

1. Drury with a spade fit

2. (i) Slam try, usually with a second suit, or (ii) Choice of games with 4M or 3NT, to be clarified

with a 3NT bid next time.

3. I have a good diamond suit (two of the top three honours)

4. In order to set up double key card Blackwood

5. Six Key Card Blackwood (spaces and diamonds- four Aces and two Kings )

6. One or four key cards

7. Queen ask

8. Both the queen of spades and the queen of diamonds

9. Please pick a grand slam (in case East has only KQ109 in diamonds)

Mahmood took a bit of a chance: a spade grand slam would likely have been on the heart finesse if Rosenberg had only four diamonds, unlikely as that was (Rosenberg had denied a heart control by bidding four spades over four diamonds).

Colin Simpson led a heart. Rosenberg won with the ace, led a diamond to the king, ruffed a club, cashed the ace of diamonds, came to the queen of spades, drew the last trump and claimed, plus 1440.

At the other table…Bob Hamman and Mark Lair really got in John Holland’s face with Hamman opening the North hand one club and Lair pre-empting to 3 clubs, forcing Holland to start at the three level. He doubled for takeout but having received only a three-diamond bid from Gunnar Hallberg in response to his takeout double and having holes everywhere, despite his jump later they subsided in 5 spades for a huge 14 IMP loss.”

Great report by JC and all in all a brilliant display by Zia and Rosenberg and shows that even the stars of the game must put in countless hours refining their systems.

The thing to notice on the hand is that the “tighter” fit is nearly always better (4-4 opposed to a 5-3, 5-3 as opposed to a 6-3) because the non-trump suit provides discards.

Here the key was the ability to ruff the club in the short trump hand to provide the vital thirteenth trick. Also a timely entry in the column as I am playing golf with Zia in London this weekend (he has a 5 handicap at Sunningdale!) and will have a chance to discuss it with him…at the right time in the game !