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English 61 Horror Corner (5) Six-Six in the Blacks Ram Soffer The following amazing story is taken from Bob Hamman’s autobiography At the Table (1994). It happened during his first world championship tournament, playing with Don Krauss against Jamaica in the World Bridge Olympiad, New York 1964. How would you feel when you (South) pick up this collection (Dealer East, Vul Both): ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ AQJT65 - 4 KQJ832 Nice hand, but Bob Hamman was quite worried, since “all it did was bring to mind the other time I found myself holding twelve black cards”. Playing rubber bridge with a weak partner, Bob was holding ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ KQJ654 5 - KQT952 He was bidding busily, green vs red, but when he reached four spades, his LHO “doubled with a vengeance”: West North East South Hamman 1♠ Pass Pass 3 ♥ 4♣ 4 ♥ Pass Pass 4♠ Dbl At this point, North who was unable to bid anything thus far, emerged with Five Diamonds. Bob tried to stay calm and bid a sophisticated five hearts, trying to play in the right black suit, but when five hearts doubled came back to him he realized that redoubling for SOS with a weak partner might be extremely costly. “I didn’t have that much money, so I retreated to 5♠ and took my minus 1300 [old scoring]”. Let’s return to our main deal from the World Olympiad: ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 82 AJT97654 86 6 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 97 KQ8 QJ752 A95 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ K43 32 AKT93 T74 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ AQJT65 - 4 KQJ832 99 out of 100 bridge players would have been extremely excited about South’s hand, but Bob already had a premonition…