The theme of the week was definitely to avoid letting the opponents play in two of a major. I counted four hands that emphasized that principle. There were also at least two potential slam hands, one of which my partner brilliantly declared against the sit-out team. However, from my perspective the most interesting hand by far was #23. My backside occupied the East chair.

A familiar saying in bridge is "Six and five; come alive." My spirits were certainly roused when I sorted out these thirteen pasteboards:

          ♠ 4     ♥ 4     ♦ A Q 10 9 4 3     ♣ A J 9 8 2

When my partner followed South's pass with his own green card, I was not too disappointed. I thought, "It will not require very much from him for this baby to produce twelve tricks." My revery was, however, broken when North unexpectedly set down the 1♦ card.

Prior to that instant I had never understood why some partnerships use the Unusual No-trump overcall to designate a 5-5 or better holding in the minors rather than in the two unbid suits. Now I certainly wished that that was our agreement. Oh, well. I felt obligated to tell partner about my clubs. If he was short in diamonds, maybe we could reach a slam in my five-card suit. So, I overcalled at the two level.

South's raise to 2♦ was nothing short of shocking. I checked the back of my cards to make sure that we were all playing with the same deck as partner reached for his bidding box. At this point slam was no longer in my thoughts. I was just hoping that he would set down the red card. I was really disappointed when he reached toward the top of the box and withdrew the 2♠ card instead.

Since I had focused my hopes on him doubling for the majors, it was not much of a stretch for me to wonder at this point why he had chosen to overcall instead. I deduced that his spades must be considerably better than his hearts. It suddenly occurred to me to ask myself, "Why is no one bidding hearts?" Twelve of them were split among the other three players. If North had five, she surely would have opened that suit. If South had five, she would have surely mentioned them or doubled rather than support partner with an anemic four-card holding. If my partner had five, he surely would have kept hearts in play by doubling. The only conclusion that made any sense was that all three of them had four hearts.

That surely meant that my partner must have six spades, or at least five very good spades. With 5-4 he probably would have doubled. The vulnerability probably deterred him from opening at the two level in the second chair. So, at this point I had a pretty good picture of everyone's distribution. My partner was probably 6=4=0=3; North was probably 4=4=3=2; and South was probably 2=4=4=3. This assumed only that South would not have raised a minor suit without at least four pieces.

North passed, of course, and after taking a second to reflect upon how drastically my assessment of my hand had degenerated in the course of the last minute or so, I realized that the goal now was to escape this hand with any sort of positive score. We probably had an eight-card club fit, so the possibility of bidding 3♣ briefly flittered into my consciousness. That might be a better contract than 2♠, but I did not want to give the opponents a chance to find their heart fit, and I did not want to give my partner a chance to bid anything at all. After a small prayer of of thanksgiving that we do not play his advance as forcing, I passed, and so did South.

I had my opponents' distributions reversed. South for some reason chose to raise diamonds with only three shabby pieces rather than make a negative double. Here is the entire layout:

North led a low diamond. My partner cleverly inserted the nine from the board, and it held. He eventually scored seven additional tricks for +110. I could not complain too much. We avoided overbidding, and the opponents with 22 high-card points never found their eight-card heart fit.

However, consider what would have happened if West had opened 2♠ (as I would have done). What? You say that you would never bid a weak two with a four-card major on the side, not to mention a void? Well, neither would Charles Goren's grandmother. In this case, North would have doubled. Not everyone would have passed with the East hand, but I would have, and I would not have broken tempo. South would then play the hand in 3♥. In that auction she would hardly expect West to hold four hearts (even if I was in the West seat), and she would know that East could ruff the second spade trick. She would probably start with two rounds of trump, and that would be fatal. Down three looks likely to me.