Mistakes

Julie and I continued our mini-trend with another good game today. We didn't get many good cards, though, and Julie was declarer only once. She should have played at least twice, but one time when she opened 2 clubs I accidently stole the bid and had to play it out of my weak hand. Rather than go on about that, though, I would rather describe a couple of other mistakes I made. Those were much more interesting -- mainly because they turned out much better for us.

Here's the first one: Julie opened 1 Club and I studied my hand. I had 12 or 13 HCPs but no suit, so I planned to bid 2NT. Before I could do so, however, my RHO overcalled 1 Heart. Now what? I didn't have a suit and I couldn't bid 2NT over interference because while I'm not sure what that would mean, I am sure it wouldn't mean that I had 12 points. I had hearts stopped with Kxx so I bid 1NT instead. As soon as I made the bid, I sent a mental message out to everyone at the table: bid again, bid again, bid again, somebody bid again. Please.

My LHO passed. My partner passed. My RHO paused . . . and bid 2 Hearts. I calmly bid 3NT, which was a big surprise for everyone, and they all passed. A heart was led and dummy came down. I was happy to see the diamonds, which would set up beautifully, but was concerned about the lack of good hearts. MY RHO ducked and I took the first trick with my king. I knew I couldn't afford to lose the lead, so I played with that in mind. And I never did lose the lead--I took all of the tricks.

I learned later that I should have cue bid the hearts.

The other interesting mistake I made was against a top pair in the club. As I waited for the bid to come around to me, I looked at my hand and thought "I have nothing to say." I had 6 sad points and had already mentally passed when I realized that I had to bid something. Julie had opened 1 Club and my RHO had passed. While I wanted to pass as well, I realized that with 6 points I had to say something. I bid 1NT and everyone passed.

I don't know if it was at the moment I bid 1NT or if it was when the last person had passed that I realized that I held 4 little hearts in my hand. Yikes! I hoped there wouldn't be any hearts in dummy, but of course there were. We should have been in hearts, and I knew that this fact would not escape anyone's notice. I did the best I could but went down 1 and got ready.

"Why didn't you bid hearts?" My RHO asked, perplexed.

"I don't want to talk about it," I replied. Of course I talked about it anyway, and everyone was very kind. They even figured out that I was better off in 1NT than in hearts, and indeed I was. We got an above average board.

It's a beautiful thing when a mistake works out for the best, but it's better yet when I learn something from it. Hopefully both will be in play on Sunday.