The “never happened before” Moments

I played a bit in a sectional this past weekend and had two things happen that I’d never personally been involved in before.

1) Bid and made 3 NT where the other table passed out the hand. Difference in hand evaluation I guess 🙂

2) Been involved in a Swiss where 40% of the field was within a 5 VP spread after the end of the event (30 point scale). 1st in A was 116, 4th was 111.

This got me to thinking a bit about those rare things. Most video games these days have trophies or accomplishments for rare occurrences. Gamers will then spend hours upon hours going for their last few achievements just so they can claim to have done it all. What might a similar list for bridge “achievements” or “trophies” look like? Here’s one such list, with what I’ve done and what I still have to do (skipping the “win x” stuff because what’s the fun in that?):

Bid and make slam after opponents open the bidding at the 1 level: Yep

Bid and make a slam after opponents open 1 NT strong: Nope

Bid and make a grand after the opponents open at the 1 level: Nope* (see below)

Be involved in a double slam swing: Yep (both slams bid and made)

Bid and make 3NT while opponents pass it out at teams: Yep

Bid and make a slam while opponents play a part score at teams: Yep

Bid and make a grand while opponents play a part score at teams: Almost – we wimped out and bid 6.

Doubled contract making for a push: Yep

Redoubled contract making for a push: Nope

Bring back -1400 and win imps: Yep

Bring back -1700 or worse and win imps: Nope

Give up a ruff and sluff on the opening lead: Yep

Ruff and over ruff on the opening lead: Yep

Bid and make a (known) moysian game: Yep

Bid and make a (known) moysian slam: Nope

Bid and make a (known) 5-2 fit slam: Yep

Bid and make a (known) 5-2 fit grand: Nope

Then a few entertaining (at least after the fact) ones like:

Play your bergen raise: Yep

Play your exclusion bid: Nope (although I guess Garner can say yep to this one)

Get passed in your forcing opening (1c or 2c): Nope

What does your list look like? What might be some other good additions to the list?

*There was one hand where I strongly considered bidding a grand after LHO opened at the 1 level. Here was the hand/bidding:

West	North	East	South
1♣	1♦	P	2♥*
3♣	3♥	P	5♣**
P	5♠	P	?

*Natural and forcing

**Exclusion

Now with:

Axx AQJT9xx J9x –

I was strongly considering bidding grand. It obviously depended on just how good partner’s diamonds were. We wouldn’t typically overcall a minor on Axxxx, but if she had AQxxx (no T) I could lose a diamond even with the K onside. I also felt slam would probably be a big pickup, so I wimped out and bid 6.

Dummy hit with:

Qx Kxx AQTxx xxx

and the K of diamonds was onside. While stopping in 6 was the correct tactical decision, I still regret not bidding 7 as I’ve never had the opportunity come up again.. and had it not worked we would have still won the match handily. Oh well 🙂