Last November, Brian McAllister, a sophomore, and Bobby Bodenheimer, a graduate student, won the North American College Bridge Contest in its first year of existence. The game was run across the US and Canada simultaneously with each location playing the same hands. Brian and Bobby had the highest score in the country. For their efforts, each was granted a $500 scholarship. Third in the country, but, sadly, second in the region, were Jeff Goldsmith, a graduate student, and Fred Upton, a senior. The winners in each of 15 regions won scholarships.

This hand contributed to Brian and Bobby's continent-wide high score:

Matchpoints N/S Vulnerable

	Q AKQ5 K975 A754
10876 762 1084 Q96		K5432 J9 J6 KJ103
	AJ9 10843 AQ32 82

West	North	East	South
---	1	11	Dbl2
Pass	33	Pass	44
Pass	54	Pass	54
Pass	6	All Pass

¹ Foolish

² Negative double meaning ``I wanted to bid 1''

³ Heart support and a singleton spade

⁴ Aces. Also overbids.

Brian and Bobby reached this thin slam, though with the K expected onside due to the overcall, it is almost 50%. The opening lead was the 6, and Bobby paused to take stock. He planned to draw trumps and take the spade finesse, but figured that it could not hurt to duck the first club trick. Maybe something good will happen. East won the first trick and continued clubs. Bobby drew two rounds of trump; both the Jack and nine dropped! This made it pretty safe to ruff two clubs in the closed hand in order to avoid the spade finesse. The play continued: third club ruffed safely with the eight, diamond to the King, fourth club ruffed safely with the ten, spade Ace, spade ruff, draw trumps and claim when diamonds are 3-2 or RHO has four diamonds and the spade King.

Whether or not this was the best line, plus 1430 was worth 96 matchpoints out of 100. A triumph for overbidding!