The Hands from Hell

    Subtitle: Shapely Misadventures

Hand #1:  At a recent club level game, sitting in 3rd position, as South I held:

  ♠  x

  ♥ AKJ10xxx

  ♦ Ax

  ♣ xxx

After contemplating this little beauty, I glanced up and much to my surprise, my partner had opened "1 Heart". "Eureka ... Slam City," I muttered under my breath, as did every other South in the room. After all, I was pretty sure that partner's opening count was not in hearts, which made my extreme "shape"� look mighty attractive! "What to bid….?"�

I came up with what I thought was the perfect response.

"3 Spades"� (Splinter), I bid.  No "Alert"� by partner.  Little did I know that the glazed look in my eyes and slack jaw, caused by his heart opener, had convinced my partner I was not to be trusted as being in my right mind. Pawing at the earth under the table may not have helped either.

"4 Spades,"� he rebid, taking my 3S bid for some sort of insanity which I sure he hoped I had not passed on to our children. Things went downhill from there, but the final contract was 6H, down 1 – as it was at every other table in the room that night. The only thing that might have kept me out of a heart slam was a ball-peen hammer applied smartly and with force to one of my temples.

The fatal flaw was my ♣xxx facing partner's ♣Axx in his 12-point opener. There was no way around two club losers, although my partner tried valiantly to strip the opponents' hands down, and hope that on trick 11 one of them would be forced to give him a slough and a ruff.

Hand #2:  Later that evening, South again and Dealer, my hand was

  ♠ Void

  ♥ xx

  ♦ QJ10xxxx

  ♣ AKQ10

"1 Diamond"� was my opening bid. Too good to preempt, I reasoned.

"2 Diamonds" (Inverted Minors), responded partner.

"3 Clubs", I said.

"3 Hearts" from partner. Just what I wanted to hear! As you can well imagine, I am slack-jawed, drooling and pawing again.

On this hand, my partner turned out to have an 18-point beauty. We ended up in 6D after a Key-Card-asking misadventure. 6D turned out to be an okay result in terms of the field that night. However, we missed bidding a cold-as-ice grand slam. My partner had no clue that I once again had extreme unlikely shape, and I knew his supposed response to my "What are your Key Cards?" was not correct.

Playing Duplicate Bridge some evenings can be humbling, humiliating, maddening, frustrating!

By the way, as I recall, all my other hands that evening were consummately boring, had fewer than six points, and were totally square, or at least it seemed that way.

Regional Winner  

Unit 223 Player Dennis Rose from Boaz, KY was high-point winner at Unit 223's Metropolis Split Regional held in June. We believe Dennis is the first Unit 223 player in possibly eight years to head the list of winners at our Unit's regional.

When I spoke to him recently, he immediately credited his fine teammates for helping him to this accomplishment. Dennis accrued a total of 55.66 points at the regional to top the Winner's List.

He was on the winning teams for the Monday-Tuesday KO Bracket I (1st Place with Dalton Darnell, Jim Kallaher and Ron Brockman), Wednesday-Thursday KO Bracket I (2nd Place with Fran Russell, Sandy Linn and Dennis Bristol), and Friday Swiss Team (1st in A with Fran Russell, Sandy Linn and Dennis Bristol). All of Dennis' teammates are also Unit 223 Players.

Congratulations, Dennis and teammates, on a fine week's work at the regional!
 

Unit 223 Board

Elections for Unit Board were scheduled to be held the first half of June. Board members for your Unit are:

Area 1

   Ron Brotherson, Paducah, KY

   Dalton Darnell, Murray, KY

   Marcia Darnell, Murray, KY

Area 2

   Karen Coe, Ewing IL

   Carolyn Taylor, Carbondale IL

Area 3

   Jay Coleman, Hutsonville IL

   Joan Musgrave, Oblong IL

Area 4

   Kate Dickens, Effingham IL

   Paul Hartke, Effingham IL

Area 5

   Bill Rotter, Granite City IL

   Doug McQuaid, Lebanon IL

Congratulations to the following Unit 223 Players who have advanced in rank:

New Sectional Masters

   Candy Butz, Belleville IL

   Donna Murphy, Worden IL

New Regional Masters

   Jo Grissom, Hickman, KY

   Carol Phillips, Godfrey IL

   Gloria Zupanci, Edwardsville IL

   James Zupanci, Edwardsville IL

New NABC Master:  William Riley, Alton IL

Upcoming Sectionals Unit 223

Paducah's Irvin Cobb Sectional Tournament will be held August 31 through September 1. Play starts on Friday afternoon, and is being held in a new venue. Please check out the tournament flyer on-line for directions to the new playing site. Maxine Wynn is Partnership Chair and can be contacted at (270) 554 5719 or by e-mail twynn401@comcast.net

The St Louis Metro-East Sectional is being held October 5 through October 7 at the Steamfitter's Hall, Caseyville IL. Partnership Chair is Glenda Piek -- (618) 656 3856 or (618) 806 3275.

Flyers for both sectionals can be viewed in this issue of the Advocate or at www.acbl.com Tournaments Information.