The Menagerie Revisited

Simon Stokes reminded me of the wonderful Menagerie books by Victor Mollo as I sat down to play against him and his delightful partner, Verity Joubert. Some of the bridge in the books seems a bit dodgy by today's standards, but the characterisation of the individual players (The Hideous Hog, The Rueful Rabbit, Papa the Greek and Karapet the free Armenian, to name but a few) has never been bettered. So, without sounding at all like Karapet Djoulikyan, who constantly bemoans his appalling luck and even more appalling partners, it is nice to relate a board when something went right.

This was Board 5

Bidding

East    North    West    South
           Pass     Pass     1♥
3♥(1)    Dbl       3NT(2)   4♥  
Pass    Pass     5♣(3)    Pass
Pass    Dbl(4)    Pass    5♥(5)
Pass    Pass     Pass

(1) Stop-Ask. Requests partner to bid 3NT with a heart stop. By implication shows a 7 or 8 card solid suit (usually a minor) with little outside strength.

(2) Showing a heart stop

(3) Rightly judging that his side likely had, at most, three defensive tricks against 4♥, while partner was likely to hold two or more hearts. Therefore confident that 5♣ would not go more than two off and, if doubled, a likely score would be -300 against the -420 or -450 from a making 4♥ contract.

(4) My double was based on more than just heart support, partner

(5) South has to decide whether to take the medicine of a small penalty or push again for game. Feeling that she had something in hand and that the auction had not developed favourably, accepting the push to 5♥ does not seem unreasonable. 

The bidding had been revealing. East could see that it was most unlikely that a club would cash at trick one, whereas partner might well have the ♥A, so he led his singleton spade. Declarer won on the table with the ace but when she played a trump, West won and gave East his spade ruff. Declarer still had an unavoidable diamond loser, so that was one off - giving E/W all the matchpoints.

I don't suppose that Verity has a drop of Armenian blood in her.

Victor Mollo: Bridge in the Menagerie: The Winning Ways of the Hideous Hog by Batsford (reprinted 2003)