The Great Shuffler's simultaneous revenge (2)

I've written before about simultaneous pairs – where the same deals are played county, country or even world wide and scored against all those who play. There is still a deeply ingrained memory that such events contain 'fixed' deals, harking back to when they were played for charity and each board was submitted by a bridge notable.

Nowadays a computer deals the hands and scores the event and the Internet allows you to check your results in great detail: all details are available within a short while and you can see your position in the wider field as well as the local one. These could be quite different. If everyone in your club makes a difficult three no-trump but out in the rest of the country half the declarers fail, then you'll have just 50% at club level but 75% nationally. Of course, it can cut the other way – if you're defending that example for instance - and it's perhaps surprising that the results average out much in line with each other, though it is not unknown for the top ranked local pair on the evening not to be the highest from that club in the larger field.

Most events come with hand records and a brief commentary. It's always nice to find something the commentator didn't see – well most of the time. This was board 18 from the recent Bridge Great Britain Spring Thursday Simul:

N-S Vul.
Dealer East
  • J74
  • K94
  • QJ62
  • AQ9
  • Q5
  • AQJ108752
  • ---
  • K103
N
W
E
S
  • 10863
  • 6
  • AK1098
  • 854
  • AK92
  • 3
  • 7543
  • J762

Julian Pottage wrote:

To open 4♥ in third seat sounds sorely tempting and, on the normal ♦Q lead, you escape for down one. If, however, North finds an inspired spade, it goes three down. Opening only 1♥ will be worth a lot of matchpoints as then you reach 3♥ via 1♥ – 1♠; 3♥ and North surely still leads a diamond. 3♦, 3♣, 2♠ and 2NT are all makeable North-South.

And West did open 1♥ but over her partner's uncertain 1♠ response she jumped to 4♥. I pondered my lead. Slightly suspicious of East I avoided the diamond lead and selected a heart. Now, I've been recently schooled in the benefits of suit-preference in the trump suit in place of my previous practice of high-low to show an odd number. Accordingly, as I wanted a club from partner, I selected the heart four. I expect you can see what happened – did I tell you these hands were fixed?

Published Saturday 30.Apr.2005