This year with my partner Joaquin Pacareu we played in the 2013 Atlanta NABC as part of the d’Orsi team:
Ernesto d’Orsi – Mauricio Figueiredo – Miguel Villas-Boas – Joao Paulo Campos, Sao Paulo Brasil; Benjamin Robles y Joaquin Pacareu, Santiago Chile.
We signed for a Swiss Team event, and in one of the matchs we had to play against an unknown team, this is one of the funniest boards we played:
IMPS, Dealer North, No one Vul
Well, as I was saying we can open some good 9-10hcp hands in first seat white. Joaquín took a wild choice by opening :
 Q 7 2 |
 8 7 3 |
 K Q 10 9 8 |
 Q 10 |
| Subasta | |||
| PACAREU | ROBLES | ||
| NORTE | ESTE | SUR | OESTE |
| 1! |
1 |
Doblo* | 2 |
| Pass** | Pass | Doblo | Pass |
| 2 |
Pass | 3 |
Pass |
| 3*** |
Pass | 4 |
Pass |
| 4**** |
Pass | 5NT***** | Pass |
| 6***** |
Pass | Pass | Pass |
* 4 or 5 Spades
** 2 or less spades, if 3, them no real opener
*** Denies heart stopper
**** «Benja, please Pass»
***** Pick up slam
****** «Finally I can show why i opened
Personally (and I think I also include all the strong club people here) I would not open this one. I would only open this hand on third seat white.
My partner takes more liberties than I, thats for sure. The auction was pretty natural, with Joaquin obviously being desperate to sign off the contract, hopefully at the level of 2, but that wasn’t going to happen this time.
The guy on lead asked me before leading, «what did Joaquín showed after his 4 signf offs?» to which I replyed «horrible hand with 3 spades and diamonds». I put down the dummy and this time, even though he had opened THAT hand, I could tell that he was very pleased with my cards:
| A K 8 6 |
| 5 |
| A 7 5 |
| A K 9 5 3 |
Joaquín’s opening bid had to be somewhere, right? 11 more imps for our team earned after that «normal and popular» opening.