What's the greatest compliment you've received at the bridge table?

[S2000magic]

I've had a couple, but the best came at club in New Jersey perhaps 20 years ago; a little background is necessary:

 

I was on a business trip and stopped in at the local club for a Friday evening game. I didn't know that that was the evening of the Epson World-wide Bridge Tournament. I was paired with another visitor, from Boston.

 

We arrived at the table of two women against whom I'd played before; between them they had about 12,000 masterpoints. (I currently have about 30.) In fourth seat I held:

 

♠ A 8 6 4

♥ K Q 3

♦ K 4 2

♣ 8 7 3

 

The auction was:

 

Pass - 1♦ - 1♥ - ?

 

I bid 3NT. The ♥5 was led, and this dummy came down:

 

♠ K 9 5

♥ 9

♦ A Q J 7 5 3

♣ 6 4 2

 

I knew my RHO well enough to know that she'd take her ♥A and switch to a club, so the first trick went:

 

♥5 ♥9 ♥A ♥Q.

 

Before I played the ♥Q, RHO had already started to pull a club from her hand. When the queen hit the table, she paused and thought. And thought. And thought. Finally, she pushed the club back into her hand and played a small heart.

 

3NT, bid and made.

 

Afterward, she looked at me and said, "You had the ♥ K Q stiff?"

 

I looked at my hand, feigned surprise, and said, "Oh, my gosh! I had a little heart!"

 

The compliment came the next day when she, partnered with her husband, came to our table in the afternoon game. She looked down at me, then looked up at her husband and said, "Watch this guy: he's tricky with queens."

 

[On an interesting note, the booklet that we received after the tournament that analyzes the hands, said of that hand that the bidding would proceed as it did at our table, a small ♥ would be led, RHO would take the ♥A and switch to a ♣, and 3NT would be down 1 trick. That was it.

 

Immediately after the game I was walking past two gentlemen discussing hands, and one (whom I knew fairly well), said, "The expert play on that hand is the ♥Q." I stopped.

 

"Are you talking about board 3?"

 

"Yes."

 

My hand shot into the air. "Guess who played the ♥Q!"

 

My comeuppance was that, in that room, I got a poor score on that board: most declarers were making 4NT, winning their ♥Q at trick 2. I was cursed with the only opponent good enough to find the club switch unless I gave her a big shove back toward hearts. Sigh.]

[PeterGill]

Background Info: Bill O'Reilly was Australia's greatest "spin bowler"

at cricket for 5 decades until Shane Warne came along.

 

Not long after my local bridge club celebrated Fred and Nola's 65th wedding anniversary recently,

Fred McGuire said to me: "You know, Peter, when I play bridge against you, it reminds me

of when I was batting at top level cricket in the 1940s and had to face Bill O'Reilly's bowling.

I could handle all the other bowlers, but I just couldn't figure out what to do against his bowling."

[Antrax]

I may be missing something, but assuming the 1♥ call was hers, your 3NT should have a heart stopper. That means you don't have Q singleton, QJ doubleton, or whatever holding a heart return caters for. Why would the Q cause her to forgo the switch?

[S2000magic]

I may be missing something, but assuming the 1♥ call was hers . . .

It was.

 

. . . your 3NT should have a heart stopper. That means you don't have Q singleton, QJ doubleton, or whatever holding a heart return caters for. Why would the Q cause her to forgo the switch?

 

She assumed I had ♥ K Q stiff, so she could knock out my (now singleton) ♥K, get in with a ♣ or a ♠ and take three more heart tricks.

[Cyberyeti]

I may be missing something, but assuming the 1♥ call was hers, your 3NT should have a heart stopper. That means you don't have Q singleton, QJ doubleton, or whatever holding a heart return caters for. Why would the Q cause her to forgo the switch?

KQ doubleton and not enough tricks.

[EricK]

It probably doesn't count as a compliment, but this talk of doubleton honours reminds me of the time declarer described me as a "tricky opponent" (or something like that) when I followed with the Jack from QJ doubleton in a restricted choice scenario, and subsequently won a trick with the Queen when she finessed partner for it.

[blackshoe]

Background Info: Bill O'Reilly was Australia's greatest "spin bowler"

at cricket for 5 decades until Shane Warne came along.

 

And in the US today, we have another Bill O'Reilly, who lives in, or claims to live in, the "no spin zone". :lol: :lol:

[aguahombre]

I don't think that was an accident. The U.S. Bill Reilly was probably aware of the irony when he coined the term for himself.

[ArtK78]

Some years ago the ACBL Nationals ("North American Championships") was held in Atlantic City. I played in the Vanderbilt with my regular partner. In the opening 3-way, one of our opponents was Grant Baze's team. Baze played at the other table. I cannot recall the identity of the players at our table.

 

On the last board of the first segment against Baze's team, I opened the bidding with one of a minor. LHO overcalled 2♠ and my partner made a negative double. I had a minimum balanced hand with a spade stop, so I bid 2NT. My partner, still looking at the same 8 count that he made his negative double on, raised to 3NT.

 

My LHO decided that it was time for a tricky lead. That cost one trick. Furthermore, it pretty much located all of the missing honors in the hand. I was able to play the hand double-dummy and score up 9 tricks.

 

Despite the pickup on this board, we were still losing to Baze's team but we were far ahead of the third team, so we were in good shape.

 

After the dinner break, I returned to the table and began to shuffle the boards. One of the members of Baze's team sat down and did the same. Grant came strolling by to ask his teammate what happened on the 3NT board. After a somewhat desultory reply, Grant started jumping up and down stating "I couldn't even make 1NT on that board and they bid and made 3NT?"

 

I took that as a compliment.

[S2000magic]

It probably doesn't count as a compliment, but this talk of doubleton honours reminds me of the time declarer described me as a "tricky opponent" (or something like that) when I followed with the Jack from QJ doubleton in a restricted choice scenario, and subsequently won a trick with the Queen when she finessed partner for it.

I had a hand similar to that in Toronto on Monday: I won the first finesse in trumps with the ♥Q from ♥ Q J x, then declarer later finessed partner for the ♥J. We would have set the contract if, after winning the second finesse I had played a third trump to prevent declarer from trumping her last spade, but I fell asleep. Sigh.

[S2000magic]

I also had a situation - again, about 20 years ago - in which I horribly misplayed a suit combination and still won the maximum number of tricks because LHO didn't cover an honor when he should have. After the hand his partner asked him why he didn't cover. He said that the actual layout never occurred to him because he knew that I was too good to have botched it so thoroughly.

[ggwhiz]

This thread brings back some good memories.

 

When I was a rookie and started to show some promise a really good player asked me for a game.

 

Nerves struck and I lost my mind. Right after I bid RKC and got a 5♠ response (forcing me to 6♥ off 2 aces) he said "You are better than this. We're playing again tommorrow."

[TheoKole]

A few years ago me and my regular partner decided to go into an open category tournament team match just for the experience. At the time we both were at a very low category and were favorites to finish in last place. In our first match, I had the honor to play against the number 1 and number 3 players in the country. In a 4 ♥ contract that I declared the cards were just terribly placed and I had to endplay the opponents 2 times to get out for -1, after a surround play by my RHO. The declarer at the other table ended up at 4 ♥ -3. In any case the number 1 player (my hero) gave me a well played, truly unlucky compliment that I will always cherish.

 

Theo