In the 1950 movie
Harvey, Elwood P Dowd (Jimmy Stewart) befriends an invisible rabbit. When told by a psychiatrist that he must wrestle with reality, Dowd replies "Doctor, for 35 years I have wrestled with reality and I am happy to say that I have won".
A hand:
JT432
AK5
6
AKT5
Imps, nobody vulnerable, after three passes I opened 1
. Partner bids 1NT (forcing or perhaps as a passed hand only semi-forcing) and you bid 2
. Partner convert this to 2
. I am not delighted but so far nobody has doubled and I pass.
This is one of those Bot tourneys and so I get switched to the North hand to play it. I'll put the North hand at the bottom since that's where we are used to seeing the declaring hand in bridge diagrams.
JT432
AK5
6
AKT5
6
QJ82
J7542
Q82
Ok. If we are going to struggle with reality we first must identify reality. The opponents have 7 diamonds and surely, unless there is a highly unlikely AKQ tight, they can take at least 4 of them. They can also take the
A. So forget about playing for overtricks! The struggle will be to hold them to 4 diamond tricks and the way to do this is to lead diamonds at every opportunity. When you play your first diamond, everyone follows including the dummy. After that, when you lead a diamond you draw 2 of theirs for 1 of yours. [Added: Although this worked, it did not have to work if the bots were very clever. See comments from O and me below.]
Often these hands can go either way depending on who does what. I made 2 for +90 and a decent score. Some people opened 1NT instead of 1
in 4th position. I gather the acbl has passed some sort of rule about when you can and when you can't open 1NT with a stiff. Nobody has to make a rule to prevent me from opening this 1NT, it would never occur to me to do so. In fact the 1NT opening worked out. The opponents can certainly take 4 diamonds and 3 spades for off 1 but what they can do and what actually happens is often different. You have at least 7 tricks as soon as you get the lead.
Continuing on the theme of wrestling with reality, here is a hand from Grant's lecture/lesson yesterday. I hope he will forgive me for lifting it.
T976
9654
AQT52
None
AK52
J3
K76
KJ85
After three passes you open the S hand 1NT. North bids 2
, you bid 2
, all pass.
The opening lead is the
J, you take it with the K and play the AK of
. E follows small to the first
and shows out on the second, so W now holds the QJ in spades.
Bummer. So you claim 8 tricks, +110.
The reality is that W will get 2 spade tricks. Nothing can be done about that. But you may have some control over the consequences of this. Run diamonds. W can ruff in if he likes, as soon as he does he has only one trump left. He can ruff in with the
J and play the
Q but then what? You will be able to ruff a
back to the board to pick up the rest of your
, and you still have a trump in your hand to eventually ruff a
. You get the 2 top spades, 1 ruff on the board, 1 ruff in hand, and 4 diamonds. There are variants, for example when W ruffs in he could play off 3 hearts. You ruff the third
in hand, ruff a
to the board and lead another
. This way W ruffs 2 diamonds, good for him, but you ruff 2 hearts. As near as I can see, S can claim 8 tricks after playing the AK of
.
I was 11 when I first saw
Harvey, and even before it came back on TCM, an old movie channel, I remembered a lot of it. "for 35 years I have wrestled with reality and I am happy to say that I have won". I like that.
