Bridge | 23 September 2023

The great Bob Hamman, in his heyday the best player in the world, was once asked what the biggest mistakes of his bridge career had been, and he answered: ‘To gamble on a penalty instead of bidding our own contract.’

The longer I play this game, the more I realise how right he is; defending is hard and full of surprises, and defending doubled contracts – especially part scores – is as unprofitable as it is stressful.

We could hardly ask for a better example of this principle than today’s hand from the Bermuda Bowl final between Norway and Switzerland.

This was the auction at the first table with Norway N/S. West showed the majors with 2♦️, East gave preference to the suit where he had an honour, and South figured he had good defence and doubled for penalties. This could have gone one down, but North led a trump, thereby eating up his partner’s second trump trick.