It's normally a good idea to keep on the right side of Burn's Law, but not always. My most spectacular piece of law breaking came in a county KO match, where Roy France and I played in five clubs vulnerable with a combined trump holding of four to the jack. In spite of the ludicrous contract, the bidding was not unreasonable, nobody doubled, and we even gained on the board.
The hand comes from the match between Keith Bartlett and Shirley Groome, won convincingly by Shirley, in spite what happened here.
Game all
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| South | West | North | East |
| 1♥ | 2♦ | 4NT | 5♣ |
I have to admit that I was East, and my five clubs was an attempt to get a club lead against five or six hearts, and to give the opponents a chance to forget their responses to Blackwood after intervention. Unfortunately this cunning plan backfired when South passed to show one ace, West passed to show club tolerance, and North passed to show even more club tolerance.
I am sure that North (Andy Passmore) was right to pass five clubs - he knew that six hearts would go down on a club lead, and the penalty in five clubs undoubled would be worth more than a game.
North-South could have taken all the tricks, but it is always difficult to find the optimum defence against silly contracts, and they generously allowed me to take a spade, a heart ruff and a diamond (!) for a penalty of 800.
Meanwhile Keith Bartlett and Gary Pick had a good auction to the second best contract on the North-South cards .
| South | West | North | East |
| 1♥ | pass | 3♣ | pass |
| 3♥ | pass | 4♦ | pass |
| 5♣ | pass | 6♥ | double |
28 imps hung on the choice of opening lead. East's double was Lightner, which asks partner to find an unusual lead and is usually based on a void. Perhaps South should have removed to 6NT (which makes on any lie of the cards), but West failed to get the message and led a diamond. Declarer quickly wrapped up all the tricks for 1860 and a 14 imp swing.
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