DESERT ISLAND HANDS: ROBERT PROCTER

 Rob's game is distinguished by fine declarer play and, in particular, a wonderful imagination at the Bridge table. The first hand (below) illustrates his ability to see quickly past his own cards and into the minds of his opponents.

Anyway, let me hand over to Robert, who describes how he started playing Bridge, and gives us a couple of entertaining hands:

I started learning Bridge from a simple book at boarding school at Cheltenham. I thought we were quite good until we were thrashed by a makeshift staff team. Then to Oxford and slightly more serious, with "coaching" from Ian Ferguson at Pembroke College. I partnered Andrew Dickens, Simon Davis, Paul Hepworth and Pete Czerniewski with varying degrees of success, winning Cuppers twice and the Wessex League, but losing the Varsity Match heavily. My Bridge was noted for psyches and unusual card-play, which pulled a few matches out of the fire in the last set.

From Pembroke I went to Grant Thornton (chartered accountants), staying in Oxford, so I joined the Oxford Bridge Club, and later the Menagerie. Partners have been Doris Nicholson (until she retired to play golf), Mike Robinson (until he retired to work and family commitments), Nick Smith (until we could each put up with the other's wayward bidding no longer) and Sandra Claridge (who hasn't quite given up on me yet).

Although the psyching is much reduced (due to partner pressure and not old age) I still enjoy putting one over on the opposition, and I am always seeking opportunities to do so in the card-play. In deciding whether I have a hand to display as a "triumph" I feel I should leave out of consideration hands on which my bidding has been less than perfect, so there are few left to choose from. However, I found this inconsequential hand played in an unimportant duplicate quite satisfying:

In fourth seat I was dealt:

My diamond opening bid after three passes was passed out, so I hope you will agree that the bidding was faultless! Dummy put down:

The heart lead looked like fourth highest and went to the king and ace. Have you thought about what to do next yet? If you want to be a successful con-merchant you have to do it quickly, so the heart ten was on the table before I had time to consider all the consequences, but I had had time to realise that this would not look like the play of a man with ATxx. It is the risk of failure of the gambit that makes the heart beat faster and gets the adrenalin going. The seconds while you wait to see what happens feel like an eternity and yet for me they are what Bridge is all about.

I won the ace and continued queen and another. Realising he didn't need to ruff this he threw a heart and his partner won with the ten and continued the jack. I discarded my small spade and he threw his last heart. Now all I had to do was to pick up the diamond queen, draw trumps and enjoy my two long hearts for three overtricks.

The good score was neither here nor there against the fun to be had from spotting the opportunity and exploiting it successfully.

My "disaster" ought really to be from such a gambit going wrong, but I guess I tend to forget those. I could also tell the story from my psyching days when Eric Bowtell famously converted my excellent seven clubs sacrifice (bid on a nine-card suit over a solid six spades) to seven hearts (of which I had one), on the basis that he knew I psyched and that therefore I would have the second suit I bid (I had opened spades and rebid hearts, only mentioning clubs at the seven level). Or there must be a hand in the 93 IMP defeat that Nick Smith and I once suffered in a nine-board match at the Spring Foursomes at Eastbourne - but I think Nick has published most of those in different situations in his book. So instead I will take a hand played on a Wednesday evening many years ago, with someone playing his first ever duplicate, against two experienced Oxford ladies. If I haven't quite got the cards right, I apologise to anyone else who remembers this hand!

It was towards the end of the evening and my partner had been doing very well indeed. My hand was:

The bidding started on my left and proceeded quite quickly: one club - one heart - two clubs - two diamonds - two no trumps - three no trumps. By quite quickly, I mean that the opponents bid quite quickly. My partner took an eternity over every single pass as if the last bus were of no concern whatever. I was asked before the dummy went down whether he had been like this all evening, and answered truthfully that he could have made all the bids he had made on all the previous boards in the time it had taken him each time on this hand. Anyway he led a small spade and dummy went down with:

Declarer played low (this looked like a mistake, but perhaps she thought she was booked for a good score whatever) and my ten forced the ace. A heart to the ten and jack followed. I tried a club and declarer finessed the jack losing to partner's singleton queen. He then ran seven spade tricks squeezing dummy so that I got the last three with three diamonds or two diamonds and a heart, depending which cards declarer kept in dummy. It is the only time I can ever remember a freely and sensibly bid contract going eight off with only the one real play error.

By this time everyone else had finished, and we still had two boards to play, but perhaps it had been worth waiting for. Expecting a triumph we opened the traveller........