Friday, September 28, 2012

Beginner's grand luck

About once a week, I play on BBO with another young dad. We get online after our kids are in bed and grab an hour or so of bridge. But the time never quite works. The free tournaments on BBO start at 9.30 and at 11 (central time) -- too early and too late respectively.

Last week, our opponents kept bailing from the table. This was so annoying that we decided to try an ACBL speedball tournament this time. This was our first speedball, so I didn't know what to expect. But beginner's luck was with us.  Witness this hand, my first ever grand slam contract:


Obviously, the bidding is not very scientific. Partner and I play a straight-forward 2/1 with no gadgets. So the bidding could not be that scientific. If I had the queen of clubs rather than the queen of diamonds, the grand may have no play, but partner hoped that my 4D indicated no stoppers in any other suits. He bid the grand, I got a diamond lead, and the hand pretty much played itself.

The other 90+ score, the first board, was a gift.  6H is cold on the hand, but our opponent didn't ruff a diamond in dummy before pulling trumps:


Obviously, that we had this opponent on this hand was a tremendous piece of luck. The 71% game was worth 1.1 matchpoints (we were third overall).

2 comments:

  1. Coincidentally a grand slam will feature on my blog today, which I finish writing it ... which probably needs me to start.

    But your grand was always likely to have play and the odds were it would be cold. Well judged.

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