Early this March at the San Francisco Regional held in Burlingame, partner Norm Dow and I experienced the most exciting hand we have ever played.
I sat East holding 19 HCP, five hearts and an unbalanced hand, so I opened one heart. Partner Norm responded two spades (strong jump shift), showing five spades and opening strength. Suddenly, with my three supporting spades and a singleton ace (adding three dummy points), my original 19 HCP jumped to 22 points. With partner’s 13-plus points, we now held 35-plus points. Small slam was inevitable and grand slam possible!
Immediately, I bid the unusual four clubs (invoking Gerber), asking for aces. Dutifully, partner Norm responded four diamonds, which means either zero or four aces. Holding none, partner Norm thought it was all over.
Then I surprised him by bidding five clubs, asking for kings. Caught off guard, partner Norm mentally calculated “diamonds = zero, hearts = one, spades = two, notrump = three … therefore, clubs had to equal four,” so he mistakenly bid six clubs.
Even with this mis-bid, I knew we held all the aces and kings. After I imagined both hands together, I said a word I thought I would never say – “YOLO.” Both opponents looked at me as if I was passing “unauthorized information,” but in reality, partner Norm was just as much in the dark as they were. I quickly explained that “YOLO” means you only live once. Then I bid seven spades. Our first grand slam ever.
After the shock wore off, partner Norm played the hand impeccably, even discovering the bad four-one trump split; he finessed the jack of trumps and drew the final outstanding trump, yielding five spades, five hearts, two diamonds and two clubs (he had to trump his fifth good heart with his last trump) for a total score of 2,210: our best ever.
Finally, to put some frosting on the cake, several other pairs bid six, making seven, but we were the only pair to bid grand slam – and we made it! What a thrill! Little did I know that seven notrump would have played a little easier and gave 10 additional points. Oh well … maybe next time.
The moral to this story is if you ever want to play in slam, you must be receptive to the possibility of going to slam … or you could wait 40-plus years like I did.
Good luck and good bridge.
Learn bridge: Are you interested in learning more about bridge? Visit www.SouthCountyBridge.com for information on a friendly place to play, conventions and bridge classes starting in April at the Morgan Hill Library. For entry level instruction or duplicate play, contact Al at [email protected] or (408) 779-7122.
