The May Unit Game

Opening Lead: Queen of hearts.

The May Unit Championship game resulted in a tie between Larry Trickey/Larry Lang and Bruce Dudzik/Lucy Fritz. Third place went to Peter Smith and Dan Hendry. They were E/W on this important board. Two maxims come to mind: “The Five-Level Belongs to the Opponents” and “Bridge is a Bidders Game.”

The Bidding: The diagram is rotated 90 degrees. Peter and Dan have less than half of the points but can make game in hearts. Their opponents thought that 5H was a make and pushed on to 5S, ignoring that the five-level belongs to the opponents. They had heard enough. They lowered the boom with a resounding double!

The Play: The defense took two hearts, a spade and a club for down two. They could have also scored a diamond ruff for the same matchpoint score.

The Lesson: One of the overall winners got a bottom when their opponents bid and made 4H with the E/W cards. The other overall winners were N/S and went down one in 3S for a tie for top their way. Dan Hendry and Peter Smith were E/W here and scored six out of seven matchpoints.

The Richland Duplicate Bridge Club has a game at the Richland Community Center at 5:30 p.m. Mondays. The public is invited. We generally finish before 9:30 p.m. We also have a game on the first and third Fridays at 12 noon at the Old Country Buffet just south of the mall on Columbia Center Boulevard. Call Tom Edwards at 946-1824 for details.

This story was originally published May 19, 2017 at 3:49 PM with the headline "The May Unit Game."