December 2010 - 58

As I write this, the world champion‑
ships in Philadelphia are coming to a
close. The Open and Women's Pairs
are yet to be determined (would you
believe an eight‑day pair game?), but
some winners I do know. Our own
Donna Compton won the Mixed Pairs
playing with Fulvio Fantoni, the Chi‑
nese women cruised to victory in the
ladies' event, and the fine team of
John Diamond, Brian Platnick, Fred
Gitelman, Brad Moss, Geoff Hampson
and Eric Greco won the Rosenblum
Cup by beating the Nickell team con‑
vincingly in the final.
I limited exposing myself (so to
speak) to the Mixed Pairs, and I could
write a book about this event alone.
May I give you a few examples? (As if
you were going to leave anyway. What
would you do, turn to "Dear Billy"
and learn some new gizmo you won't
remember tomorrow? By the way, I
looked up gizmo and it is short for
gizmotangical.)
Each pair in the Mixed consists of
one woman and one man. The women
all sit South and East, while the men
sit where they are told. I was fortu‑
nate to be playing with Sabine Auken.
She was not so lucky. The Mixed
Pairs is a three‑day event. On one deal
on the third day, the dummy was on
my side of the screen and when the
hand was over, I saw declarer's hand.
No, not the cards, the hand ... liter‑
ally: It was slender and bejeweled. I
stuck my head under the screen and
did a double take. The declarer was
a woman ... but so was the dummy.
Using my lightning‑quick reflexes and
famed wit, I stammered to dummy,
"Your partner is a woman." She al‑
ready knew it however, and explained
that each of them had lost their part‑
ners to illness and had been paired
up. Phew.
As Claire Tornay put down a broke
4=3=2=4 dummy after the auction
2NT-All Pass, she said, "At least I
58 Bridge Bulletin December 2010

x x x x x x x x A K Q 10 x.
What does 5 mean? Does it ask
for a diamond stopper? Does it ask
you to bid six with an ace? Did she
mean to bid that? What happened to
the 16 bids in between 2 and 5?
Did she mean to bid that? I was a
coward and passed, but she held:
A K Q J x x x A K Q x x x.
By George Jacobs
NOBET8888@aol.com

have the right shape." Her husband,
George, instantly said, "Fifty years
ago!"
Possibly my favorite line of all time,
but how he didn't die that day is be‑
yond me.
Don't mess with Sabine: She opened
1 and RHO bid 2 (the Michaels
convention, showing at least 5-5 in
the majors). I bid 2, showing 9 or
more HCP and good diamonds. LHO
bid 3 and Sabine bid 3NT. But wait
... RHO now bid 4. It went pass,
pass and what do you think Sabine
did now? She leaped to 6NT! This got
doubled. Well, guess what ... after a
favorable lead and a good guess, she
made this.
Okay, it goes a weak 2 on my
right, pass, pass, and the tray comes
back under the screen with a huge
pile of bids, but the screen has sort of
grabbed them and it looks like this:
5, 5, 5, 5. First the lady on
my right says, "Which bid does she
mean to make?" as if I had the phone
number to the psychic hot line in Phil‑
adelphia. Then she asked the really
key question after we had straight‑
ened out the bids and 5 was on top.
"Did she mean to bid that?" No won‑
der I got the next bid wrong. Here
was my hand:

This game is not for the timid. At
bad colors, I held:
A 10 9 8 x x x x A K 10 8 x.
RHO bid 3 and there I was. I
chose to go for the gusto and jumped
to 4. My LHO bid 5 and my part‑
ner jumped to 6. (We don't need
no stinkin' science.) Not to be out‑
done, RHO bid 7 which I raised to
14. LHO snarlingly corrected to 7
which Sabine doubled tentatively.
Three minutes later, we had our sec‑
ond lifetime‑high score of plus 1700.
There was a lot of swearing in a for‑
eign language.
Here is an interesting deal: Sabine
opened 4 and I was looking at:
 - K 9 x x A J 10 x x x x x x.
I passed but LHO reopened with
5. Right or wrong, I doubled. She
led the K and dummy was:
x x x x A J 10 x Q x 10 x x.
I figured I would ruff this, cash the
A and wait for the K. So it went:
down one. Oops. Partner had the
A K and we got neither of them.
So Sabine suggested a convention to
me. (Hey, maybe we don't need "Dear
Billy" at all. I can write about this
and get a second page. I wonder if
the Abbott ... oh, never mind.) When
you are at the five level or higher,
lead Rusinow (where you lead the
king from ace-king or the queen from
king-queen) because this will make it
easier for partner. What do you think?
I will see you all in Orlando. Dress
warmly as it is winter. Ciao.
r
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of December 2010
