Great Bridge Disasters

17 March 2000

One player I know collects bridge scores in the same way that other people collect stamps. He records them all in a book that is getting a little bigger each year. He only counts scores recorded at his table, and his ambition is to collect every possible result - I'll leave you to work out how many that will be!

Scores like +420 are commonplace, but our hero will doubtless have to wait some time before he matches the score on this deal.

Dealer East. Game All.

			J
			J 10 8 6 4
			J 10 7 5 3
			6 5
	A	N   W E   S			K Q 10 9 4 2
	7 5				A Q 3 2
	Q 9 8 4 2				-
	K 10 8 7 4				A Q J
			8 7 6 5 3
			K 9
			A K 6
			9 3 2

This looks an innocent enough deal, the main interest appearing to centre on whether East-West can reach a contract of Six Spades. However….

West	North	East	South
Shek	Sowter	Calderwood	Smolski
		1	1NT
2	3	Dbl	3
Pass	Pass	Dbl	Pass
Pass	Re Dbl	All Pass

The bidding requires some explanation!
East's opening bid was Precision Club, promising 17 or more points. Roman Smolski, one of the best card players around, is renowned for his flights of fancy in the bidding. Playing with the writer, he fearlessly overcalled Seven Clubs after the opponents had bid 2NT -6NT! The bid was alerted and on enquiry I explained 'We play Asptro over No-Trumps!'

Here his overcall promised spades and diamonds or hearts and clubs. it is generally a good idea to get involved when the opponents open with a strong club, but this hand was hardly ideal, given the disparity in length between the suits, its strength, and the vulnerability. Still, when West bid Two Diamonds it looked as if no great harm had been done. However, Tony Sowter knew he had a tremendous fit for one of the suits his partner was known to have, and West's bid, promising at least five diamonds, surely made it a racing certainty that Smolski had clubs and hearts.

When he jumped to Three Hearts, trying to make life difficult for his opponents, East doubled for penalties. Smolski's retreat to Three Spades said his other suit was diamonds, and East doubled again. Sowter should have retreated to diamonds, but just in case his partner was 'operating' he preferred an 'SOS' redouble. Smolski should have removed it, but when he passed, the stage was set for what may still be the biggest score on record.

It quite often happens when you are defending a silly contract that the odd trick disappears, but that did not happen here.

West found the excellent lead of the ace of spades and switched to a diamond, ruffed by East. He now drew all the remaining trumps and switched to clubs. When East played the last club, South was squeezed in the red suits and in desperation blanked the king of hearts. East took the last two tricks and as the other three players were trying to work out the score Smolski calmly informed them it was -5200!

Had he been there before?

When Smolski's teammates came back to compare scores, they proudly announced their score of +1460 on this board. 'Well done', said Smolski. 'The overtrick saves a point!' 'We only lose 23 IMPs.