Ever-present Pat is Riding high

Royal Gazette Staff

Created: Oct 14, 2005 11:00 AM

IT'S always good when a long-serving and regular Bridge Club member reaches an important milestone. So it gives me great pleasure to report that Pat Riding has reached the status of Silver Life Master. I believe she collected the final matchpoints required at the Montreal Regional where, in partnership with Jade Barrett, she collected a stunning 75 masterpoints!

BRIDGE bidding has always been extremely dynamic, with changes and improvements being a crucial part of the game. Changes come in systems and in conventions and both of these have settled down a bit over the last few years.There are a number of conventions that are now second nature in the game — Stayman, Blackwood and its variants, negative doubles, transfers and Lebensohl are the giants and others such as Jacoby, Cappelletti and Drury are used by many.

In the case of systems, the early days of the game were dominated by Standard American and ACOL until the Italians came along with their dominant Blue Club Team, although the system was never adopted by the rank and file. Then came C.C. Wei and the Precision revolution and for two decades big club systems were everywhere. That has now passed and on this side of the Atlantic 2 over 1 is now dominant and it is an excellent ‘natural’ system.

Two over one is a simple or as complicated as one wants to make it and the hand below shows some great bidding to get to a grand slam.

The bidders were Steve Robinson and Peter Boyd.

Dealer South. Both Vulnerable.North

[spade]8 7 5

[heart]10 6

[diamond]Q 7 5 4 3

[club]6 4 2

West East<$>

[spade]A 10 [spade]K 9 4 3

[heart]A K J 7 4 3 [heart]Q 8 5 2

[diamond]6 2 [diamond]A K 9

[club]A 10 3 [club]K 5

South

[spade]A J 6 2

[heart]9

[diamond]J 10 8

[club]Q J 9 8 7

West North East South

Boyd Robinson<$>

— — — Pass

1[heart] Pass 2NT (1) Pass

3[diamond] (2) Pass 3[diamond] (3) Pass

3NT Pass 4[club] (4) Pass

4[diamond] (5) Pass 4[heart] (6) Pass

4NT (7) Pass 5[heart] (8) Pass

6[heart] (9) Pass 7[heart] (10) Pass

Pass Pass1. Jacoby — forcing heart raise

2. Balanced with extra values

3. Asking for further description

4. Six-card heart suit

5. 2=6=2=3 distribution

6. RKCB

7. One or four key cards

8. Sign off in case only one key card

9. Four key cards

10. Well, if you can bid six . . .

As you can see, making the grand was a lot easier than bidding it. Boyd drew trumps and was able to simply ruff his third club in dummy for his 13th trick. At the other table East-West stopped in six hearts when West was unable to find out whether his partner was short in clubs.

How would you and your partner bid this hand?

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Ever-present Pat is Riding high