BRIDGE NOTES: The old time genius is as good as present day expert

The contract bridge, being the new system of the game, in 1933 soon became a fashion and it spread like forest fire across the United States. The lady bridge players were more enthusiastic in embracing contract bridge as compared to the male members.
The wave of innovative approach to bridge introduced new methodology, which was enjoyably shared by men and women players. And that gave rise to some unimaginative bidding initially.
The bridge in the new form was more challenging with the new thrilling experiences, which was not there in auction bridge. And it made the duplicate bridge more popular in the United States as well as in Europe from the times of auction bridge sessions, where regional and state championships were regularly held.
This is an episode of a mixed pair event held at a bridge club in New Hampshire where a couple came from Boston to participate in the tournament. This was year 1933, when the contract bridge was in its infancy; nevertheless it offered greater charm for the bridge players.
In the course of play in a tournament, following hand was dealt by Bonney, a gentleman who came with a lady player Marry from Boston. Bonney sat in north position and his partner Marry was sitting in south position. On this deal the bidding was simple but energetic and ambitious without complicated conventions.
(i) The Blackwood Convention for aces and bridge expert Easley Blackwood invented a kings asking in the same year in 1993.
The bidding between north and south was according to the fashion of those days with Blackwood Convention, but north got excited holding all the aces, raised the bidding to 7 No Trump ambitiously..
In keeping with the standards of leads in the earlier days of contract bridge, the west led Spade 2, which was from his best suit. With unfavourable distribution the contract went down by to tricks. There was heated argument between Bonney and Marry over the bad result of the deal because Bonney went on to bid 7 No Trump with two kings missing.
Bonney coolly interjected saying that even 6 NT was also not making with the combination of cards between them. Having both of them out of their mind, the pair lost the tournament badly as the bad temper lingered on which made rest of the deals far verse.After the close of play the couple went to the sea side to have fresh air but a Bonney was restive in mind over the mishap over the bid of 7NT while taking a cup of coffee blamed his partner for picking up a row over that particular deal which was making 7NT with the proper and imaginative table play.
He reconstructed the hand and said like an expert (which he was not) that it was possible to make 7NT with a double automatic squeeze. He said you should have allowed the lead to come to the hand. Then finessed the queen of spades and cashed the ace also. Next you should have played ace and queen of clubs and ace and queen of diamonds.
That would leave only six cards in your hands. At that stage you should have played both the kings of diamonds and clubs and discarded both the clubs from dummy which would squeeze East and West badly as the West had to discord a small heart from king, jack and small of the suit.
Similarly the East also had a part with a small heart. Now you should have played the small heart on which the jack would come from the west and the queen in the dummy would have won the trick and the play of the ace would have dropped the king of hearts and dummy was good to fulfill the contract of 7NT.
However, the lady was half convinced over the successful line of play and regretted for having an argument with his partner earlier.
DEALER NORTH: NO SIDE VULNERABLE:

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North           West          East          South

S AQ 4        S K J 32        S 65        S 10987

H AQ 103      H K J6          H 98752         H 4

D A 5         D J 8764        D 103       D KQ 92

C A 864       C 2             C J 1095    C KQ 73

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THE BIDDING:

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North           East          South          West

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2 C             Pass          2 NT           Pass

4 NT(1)         Pass          5 C            Pass

5 NT            Pass          6 H            Pass

7 NT            Pass          Pass           Pass

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