March 2006 - 29

Trent. Over the years they've added
and subtracted from the system,
and one time even tried a strong
1 system. They feel their natural
system, although not nearly as
scientific for slam bidding as a big
club, is much more difficult for the
opponents in competitive auctions.
Problem 1
North deals. None vulnerable.
West
East
KQJ
A 4 2
Q763
KJ54
A K
QJ2
 10 6 3 2
A J 8

Moderator: Dave Smith
Scores: Bobby Wolff

Stuart

See the East and West hands that appear on pages 58 and 26 respectively,
and try bidding them with a regular partner. The North-South players are
silent unless otherwise noted. Compare how you performed with the expert
pairs whose auctions you can read about in this month's column.
The form of scoring is matchpoints with a 12 top. The scores of the
competing partnerships are determined somewhat subjectively by the
following: (1) reaching the best percentage contract which figures to yield
the most matchpoints available on that board; (2) the ease of making
the reached contract or the prospect for going set a lesser number than
the opponents figure to make; (3) a top board [12] or a near-top [11] is
given only to contracts that, because of the difficulty of reaching, become
special enough to warrant a very high score; (4) if a particular contract
is not listed, in the absence of the scorer's oversight, it is assumed that the
contract deserves a zero.
Pam Wittes and Wayne Stuart
are a fairly new partnership, first
playing at the Pittsburgh NABC a
year ago. This Southern California
pair use a 2/1 approach, 15-17 point
1NT openings and many gadgets
("More than 100 pages of notes,"
according to Stuart).
Both are world champions. Wittes
won the World Mixed Pairs in 1986
and has represented the U.S. many
times, most recently in Estoril,
Portugal. She teaches bridge and
owns her own business.
Stuart won the World Junior
Team Championship in 1991 and
has many high finishes in NABC
events, including second in the
Keohane North American Swiss
Teams in New Orleans in 2003. He
has worked as a software engineer
and as a director of engineering for
a company that develops medical
lasers for cosmetic surgery. Stuart
March 2006

has a Master ranking in chess, but
no longer competes.
Pamela and Matthew Granovetter
are regular contributors to the
Bridge Bulletin, writing the
Partnership Bridge column. They
are also the founders and editors of
Bridge Today magazine and authors
of many books. They lived in Israel
for 10 years, but recently moved
back to the U.S. and now reside in
Cincinnati. Both have participated in
international play.
Their methods are natural with
old-fashioned four-card majors,
sound opening bids, strong 1NT
(good 15 to bad 18 HCP), with
some gadgets and some sound
agreements. They've played this
system on and off for 25 years,
since they learned the basics at the
old Mayfair Club and Cavendish
Club in New York City from Ira
Rubin, Al Roth and Paul and Sandy

2
4
4
Pass
Pamela
2
4
Pass

Wittes
1NT
2
4
6
Matthew
1NT
2
4

After a 15-17 point 1NT opener,
Stuart made an aggressive slam try.
He intended his 4 bid as showing
the strength of a 1NT-4NT invitation with four-card heart support.
Many pairs play 4 as key-card
asking and 4 to show the big
raise. Stuart points out that the advantage of reversing the two. Using
the 4 as the invite allows East the
chance to bid 4 as one last try for
slam without going past game.
Wittes thought 4 was a key-card
ask for hearts. Over the 4 signoff,
she had three key cards and continued on. Note the duplication in
the diamond suit. If East's Q was
exchanged for the 8, giving her
A 4 2 K J 5 4 J 5 2 A Q J,
the contract might make with a club
finesse and normal splits.
Engineers find that when a disaster happens, such as a dam breaking
or a bridge collapsing, there is not
one thing that caused it, but a series
of events. So too in bridge. Stuart's
invitation was aggressive (they have
30-32 HCP), but the pair would
have survived except that Wittes had
29
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of March 2006
