Two of my partners like to play the Flannery convention, which uses an artificial 2♦ bid to describe a hand with five hearts, four spades, and between eleven and fifteen high-card points.

On Tuesday my partner and I did not play particularly well, but we were able to take advantage of both numerous unforced errors by our opponents and the fact that most of the best players in the club were in Dallas playing for the Vanderbilt Cup. Going into the last of the twenty-seven hands I suspected that we would probably be in contention for first overall out of the forty teams that were competing.

With only the opponents vulnerable, my partner dealt and opened 2♦. RHO quickly passed. I was looking at these cards:

♠___    ♥ A 10 7 6 3 2    ♦ Q 8 6 3    ♣ 10 3 2

I actually had my finger on the 4♦ card when my guardian angel whispered the word “Flannery” in my ear. I muttered the word “oops” and belatedly alerted partner’s bid both verbally and with the card. RHO confirmed his pass.

There really was no choice about what to bid. I set down the 4♥ card. The opponents probably held the majority of the high cards, but my hand had tremendous playing strength in hearts.

LHO did not ask what the bid meant either. Instead he bid 4♠, which my partner promptly doubled, and RHO passed.

I had learned the hard way that it was seldom correct to bid five over four. As everyone has heard, “the five-level belongs to the opponent.” But with six hearts and no spades, I had to consider pulling to 5♥. I knew with perfect certainty that the opponents had nine spades, and we had eleven hearts. If we could make exactly four hearts, which my seven-loser hand made a reasonable assumption, the LAW says that they should be able to garner ten tricks in spades. If so, I should bid 5♥.

On the other hand if partner’s values were concentrated in spades, I might lose four tricks in the minors before I could even get in. It was also possible that I had a heart loser. In addition, I must admit that it occurred to me that my partner would not be pleased if I bid when he had the spade contract set in his hand. Winning the post mortem is at least as important as winning the event. Therefore, I passed, and so did LHO.

Partner led the ♥8. This was the dummy:
♠ 8 7 3    ♥ Q 5    ♦ A K 9 7 4    ♣ Q 8 6

Eleven points was more than I expected. Partner must have had a minimum with a concentration of values in spades. LHO was obviously going to ruff the first trick, but there was nothing to be lost by putting up the ace. Partner obviously had the king hovering over the dummy’s lady.

But wait. LHO did not ruff. He played the four. How could that be? I checked my heart holding. I had five left, and they were definitely all hearts. Partner must have had a diamond mixed in with his hearts! I would need to be careful that he does not revoke on a diamond trick. I led back another heart, and this time declarer did ruff. Partner followed with the nine.

Eventually my partner got a club and made all of his spades good. We set them four tricks for 1100. Did you do the arithmetic? We took one club, one heart, and five spades. And there is more. Not only did partner not have a Flannery distribution, his point count was out of the Flannery range. Here is what he had:

♠ A K J 6 4    ♥ K J 9 8    ♦ J 2    ♣ K 7

Four things to note:

1. I thank my lucky stars that I did not bid 5♥. I can only make it if LHO leads a spade, and I have the audacity to finesse for the queen.
2. I do not know what LHO was smoking to venture 4♠ with only seven points and such a ragged suit.
3. The LAW actually predicted the results pretty well. We only have ten trump, and the opponents have eight. One reason that they cannot make any spades is that clubs is their best suit! Even so, there are only seventeen tricks available because my partner’s spade suit is more valuable on defense.
4. As always, it is better to be lucky than good.