This deal created a huge swing in the Flight B Grand National Teams. My son Rich Pavlicek was North and Gary Schneider was South. Their opponents were playing ‘Precision’ — a system which uses an artificial 1 opening on all strong hands — and Rich and Gary had a special defense to combat it. Watch the action!
The 1 opening showed 16+ HCP and Rich bid 1 NT to indicate a two-suiter with spades and diamonds. (This structure allows all two-suiters to be shown: two of any suit would show that suit plus the next higher, and 2 NT would show clubs and hearts.) East bid 2 (nonforcing) and Gary jumped directly to 5 with his great fit. When West raised hearts, Rich bid spades to show his lopsided shape and Gary corrected to 6 . West judged that his partner would not make 6 (true barring hindsight to drop the K) so he doubled the ‘crazy’ opponents.
Alas, or hooray, depending on whose side you’re on. Six diamonds was cold with careful play. Gary ruffed the opening heart lead then ruffed spades at every opportunity, eventually establishing the long suit. Only a club was lost as North-South chalked up plus 1090.
At the other table the opening bid was 1 and North jumped directly to 4 . East raised to 5 and South chose to double (reasonable with a spade void). The tremendous diamond fit was never found. North led the K and even though declarer lost to the singleton K, the doubled contract was easily made for plus 650, a net gain of 1740 points or 17 IMPs.
© 1991 Richard Pavlicek
by Richard Pavlicek by Richard Pavlicek