Parasail-Bridge
by Bernard Marcoux, Montréal
Gavin is giving you explanations, but you are not really
listening. Knees bent, facing the wind, a bit nervous, you
wait. All of a sudden, Gavin, Noel and Mervin let go the
parachute, the boat pulls you, you soar towards the sky, soon
reaching 70 meters of altitude. In front of you, Barbados.
Under you, the Caribbean Sea, turquoise fluted with catamarans,
sailboats, surfboards and water skiers whose immaculate wakes
interweave in total silence.
Sometimes, the boat stops and you stay there, sitting on air.
Where is earth, where is the sky ? You don’t want to know, you
just want to enjoy this exhilaration of flying.
This state of grace you sometimes reach at bridge, when
everything is going well, when you don’t make mistakes, when
good boards are followed by excellent ones. You then climb at a
certain altitude, you live a ‘’high’’. You don’t even talk to
your partner, you just want to maintain this altitude.
On the first board, you took a sacrifice at 5
doubled and, with a false card, managed -500, for 10,5
matchpoints out of 11. On the 2nd board, you locked
declarer in dummy and he had to concede down 2 at 3nt for
another 10,5.
On 9th board, you have :
J7642
9765
10852
---
LHO.
Part. RHO.
You
1
x 2
p
3
p 3
p
4
p 5
x
Opponents play Precision. In Barbados, everybody plays
Precision. Your partner leads Ace of heart. Dummy :
Dummy
KQ83
QJ
7
QJ8642
Vous
J7642
9765
10852
---
On the Heart Ace, you play the 9, upside-down. Your partner
thinks a bit and returns… club. You ruff and play back a
heart. A second club ruff follows. You play back a spade.
Partner wins the Ace and gives you a third club ruff for +1100.
After 11 boards, at mid session, you play 78 %.
You don’t hear nothing anymore, you see only your 13 cards, you
are not warm, you are not cold, you just float like with the
Parasail, you feel like a god.
12th board.
You
Partner
A82
K75
A5
QJ104
AQ
K52
AKJ986 542
2
2
2NT 4NT
5
6NT
7
7NT
2
shows 2 controls,
so 2 Kings, because you have all 4 aces. You hesitate before
bidding 2nt (22-24), but you want to protect AQ of diamonds
4nt is quantitative : 9-10 points, 4333.
5
says 0 or 4 aces. 6nt closes the auction but, knowing the club
fit (partner has shown 4333), you decide to bid the grand in
clubs. Partner corrects to 7nt.
The lead of the Diamond Jack shows you have 12 tricks if clubs
break 3-3 or if the Queen is placed. Entries to dummy are
scarce and the diamond blockage is annoying. You win in hand
and play club Ace : the devilish 10 appears on your left. You
follow your instincts and cash the diamond Queen before playing
a spade to the King. You need 2 heart tricks, so Heart Queen
from dummy (tension, hope, fear, like before the Parasail
ride).
The queen wins !
You soar in the sky. You have to cash the diamond king now
because you will never go back to dummy. All is left now is :
You
Dummy
A
75
A
J104
---
---
KJ986
54
You play a small club from dummy, small on your right.
The boat has stopped, you hear only the wind in the parachute,
you are in a second state : since the beginning, you know you
will finesse in clubs. Will the wind die down and precipitate
your fall ? Or will iy push you higher, till your dream of
cutting the rope. A passage from G.G. Marquez’ A hundred
years of solitude comes to your mind :
"Amaranta experienced a mysterious chill in her lace petticoat
and tried to hang to the sheets in order not to fall, while
Remedios the Beautiful was beginning to rise in the air. Ursula,
already almost blind, was the only one to keep enough mind to
recognize the nature of this wind that nothing could stop, and
let the sheets go with this light, seeing Remedios the Beautiful
waving farewells in the middle of the dazzling flapping of the
sheets climbing with her, leaving the world of beetles and
dahlias, crossing the regions of the air where it was already
four o'clock in the afternoon, to be lost forever with her in
the higher spheres where the highest birds of memory could not
themselves reach her. "
The boat starts again. How much time did you stay there,
dreaming ?
One second ?
You put the club 8 on the table… RHO plays… not a club. + 2220.
In silence, you put your cards back in the board and the boat
takes you to the next table.
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