April 2019 - 30

Director, Please
BY SIMON COCHEME

I was going to call this piece "Director!" but that would set a bad example
in these days of Zero Tolerance. That
exclamation mark makes it look very
aggressive. The director is there to
help, not act as a blunt instrument with
which you bludgeon your opponents.
I asked a number of directors for
their experiences (thanks, one and all)
and to a person, they said that they
wished players wouldn't make their
own rulings. Then they gave me some
great little anecdotes about some of the
more unusual situations they had encountered. Directors are a trustworthy
lot, so let us assume they are all true.
A director was called to the table
because a novice player refused to play
her last spade, explaining that it was
her last black card and she'd no longer
be able to separate her diamonds and
hearts.
On another occasion, the same director was summoned and saw that about
eight tricks had been played. Then he
noticed there was no dummy!
The opposite situation faced another
director. He got to the table where,
after a competitive auction, there were
two dummies laid out. The hand of
the errant defender (sitting over the
real dummy) was deemed to contain
13 penalty cards. Declarer was able
to select a card from dummy, in the
normal way, and was then allowed to
nominate the penalty card to be played.
The play began with the words, "Thank
you, partner, ace, please," followed by,
"King, please," to his right-hand opponent. I am told the players saw the
funny side.
An opening lead out of turn elicited
the usual five options from the director. The declarer selected the one
where the lead (from his right) was
accepted, and dummy went down. "Do

30 Bridge Bulletin April 2019

we carry on playing this counterclockwise?" he asked.
Don't think that these things only
happen to beginners and at lowly club
games. In the 1995 European Championships in Vilamoura, Portugal,
declarer was in 4♠ doubled after a
double-fit auction. The defense made
the first five tricks on a crossruff, and
then the director was called. They
had all been playing as though hearts
were trumps! The three guilty parties
blamed dummy - he had laid out his
hearts on the right.
Up goes the plaintive cry, "I've only
got 12 cards," and the hunt begins. Is it
on the floor? Is it still in the board? Is
it in the next board? Is it in the previous board? Is it at the previous table?
No? So where might it be? In a handbag
is the next possibility. Indeed, I was
told of a time when all 13 cards went
missing and were found there. Not for
nothing is it called a handbag! Things
can get even more complicated; in one
instance, the cards were in a glasses
case inside the handbag.
My favorite (true) missing-card story
tells of a reconstruction of events at
the previous table, where all the cards
had been present and correct. Dummy
had brought a tray of coffees just as
the play was finishing. Sure enough,
the card was stuck to the bottom of the
tray, which was stacked in the kitchen!
My favorite (fictitious) missing-card
story comes from Victor Mollo. The
Hideous Hog was defending a grand
slam at rubber bridge and stood to lose
£800 (that was over $2000 in 1965!).
With five tricks to go, and seeing that
he was about to be squeezed, the Hog
claimed that he only had four cards
left. While the other players looked on
the floor, the Hog slipped a card into
his caviar sandwich. Unable to find

the missing card, declarer and dummy
looked accusingly at the Hog. He was
red-faced and spluttering, which they
assumed was righteous or feigned
indignation, when actually his discomfort came from having to consume the
evidence.
On a personal level, I have a story
from the other end of the spectrum.
A pair had badly misdefended against
me and, when I claimed my contract
with three tricks to go, they were upset
(to put it mildly). On the next deal, my
partner and I found a heart fit, and he
made an invitational 3♥ bid, which
my RHO doubled. I had been going
to raise to game, but passing was a
very satisfactory alternative. At trick
three, I led a heart from dummy, and
RHO played the ♥10. This was a bit
surprising because I had the ♥10 in
my hand. The director arrived, and it
transpired that RHO had been playing
with 16 cards - the 13 he was dealt plus
the three (all hearts) left over from the
previous deal. The director removed
the three superfluous cards and told
us to carry on; RHO's objection that he
wouldn't have doubled was met with
unsympathetic firmness. With the 6-1
break in trumps reduced to 3-1, I made
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of April 2019
