The above deal from a festive individual
unsurprisingly produced some completely different auctions. It
wasn't helped by no-one being sure whether the scoring was by match
points or IMPs. At one table the auction was as above.
South opened one diamond and West overcalled one spade, all fairly
normal so far. North then passed, possibly unsure whether one
diamond could be a three card suit. East bid what he thought he
could make and South showed his powerful hand by bidding five
diamonds. From this point on everyone was guessing as to
what was the right level. West showed heart support and
North awoke to raise diamonds. East had no idea who could make
what, but followed the sound principal of giving the opponents the last
guess. South knew there were two outstanding diamonds and
eventually assumed that they were likely to split two nil and took the
save. This is probably right at any form of scoring, seven
diamonds will not be many off and at matchpoints may beat pairs who let
East West play in game. At IMPs it is taking insurance, even if
six hearts isn't making seven diamonds will not be costly, whereas six
hearts making could cost a lot of IMPs. At the other two
tables South played in six diamonds doubled making and East in five
hearts making.
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