legends · 4 min read ·
Duplicate Boards
A bridge club replays the same twenty-four hands, week after week, until the last board.
**Marsh End Bridge Club — Duplicate Session, Tuesday 7 October**
**Director:** Mrs. E. Collins · **Tables:** 6 · **Boards:** 24
*In duplicate bridge, the same hands are played at every table. Scores are compared. A fair game depends on every deal being unique.*
- **Board · Dealer · Vul · North · East · South · West**
- 1 · N · None · ♠AK7 ♥QJ4 ♦863 ♣K952 · ♠Q86 ♥A103 ♦KQJ ♣J764 · ♠J93 ♥K982 ♦A97 ♣AQ8 · ♠10542 ♥765 ♦1042 ♣1063
- 2 · E · N-S · ♠Q10 ♥AQ ♦K10752 ♣AKJ9 · ♠AJ973 ♥K64 ♦QJ ♣1086 · ♠K85 ♥J83 ♦A93 ♣Q542 · ♠642 ♥10952 ♦864 ♣73
· · ·
**Director's notes (E. Collins, 7 October)**
A good evening. Twenty-four boards, all dealt by the machine in the usual way. Mr. Pryor made a small slam on board 9 that nobody else bid.
· · ·
**Duplicate Session, Tuesday 14 October**
**Board 1:** North ♠AK7 ♥QJ4 ♦863 ♣K952 · East ♠Q86 ♥A103 ♦KQJ ♣J764 · South ♠J93 ♥K982 ♦A97 ♣AQ8 · West ♠10542 ♥765 ♦1042 ♣1063
*Director's note: Board 1 is the same deal as last week's board 1. The dealing machine has not repeated a hand in its four-year life. I checked the card pattern against the printout. Identical.*
· · ·
**Duplicate Session, Tuesday 21 October**
Boards 1 to 12: identical to the 7 October session.
Boards 13 to 24: identical to the 7 October session.
Each table played the hands again, in the same order. Mrs. Vane at table 4 said, as she picked up her cards, "I know what I'm going to play on this." She played it. It worked.
*Director's note: Players are bidding and playing as if they remember the hands. I asked Mr. Pryor how he knew to bid the slam. He said he'd been dreaming about it. I asked for how long. He said: "Since before I came."*
· · ·
**Duplicate Session, Tuesday 28 October**
Boards 1 to 24: identical.
*Director's note: Every table scored exactly the same as on 7 October. The scores are copied, line for line. The score sheets show the same names in the same seats. I counted heads at the beginning of the evening. Twenty-four players.*
*But there are only twenty-three of us in the hall. I checked the register. One name on the sheet is no one I have met. The name in the East seat at table 6 is "A. Player." It is in my own handwriting.*
· · ·
**Letter from Mr. Pryor (received 29 October)**
*Dear Mrs. Collins,*
*I wish to resign from the club. I've enjoyed the game for many years, and I'd like to thank you for your hospitality. I regret I can't continue.*
*I have worked it out. It is not that the hands repeat. It is that we do. The boards were dealt on 7 October, and since then each session has been the 7 October session, replayed, and each of us has been sitting in the seat we occupied then, making the same bids with a growing certainty that the game was a good one.*
*We are very good at it now. We have never played so well. Nobody makes a mistake. The scores are the best in the club's history. You will notice that every session is a perfect round: twenty-four boards, all played, all matched.*
*The final board is board 24. It has not been played yet. Nobody has dared to. Look at the cards. West has no hand.*
· · ·
**Duplicate Session, Tuesday 4 November**
**Board 24:** North ♠— ♥— ♦— ♣— · East ♠— ♥— ♦— ♣— · South ♠— ♥— ♦— ♣— · West ♠AKQ ♥AKQ ♦AKQ ♣AKQJ
*Director's note: Board 24 dealt by the machine. Three of the hands are void in every suit. West holds the only thirteen cards on the board, every top honour in every suit. I have never seen such a deal. It is a hand in which no one can play but West.*
*The players at the table began to bid, softly, and with the same certainty. I did not stop them. West opened one club. There was no West at the table. The chair was empty. The bidding sheet records, in my hand, a sequence of calls that finishes with seven no trumps, doubled, redoubled.*
*Result: Board 24, 7NT doubled and redoubled, made. Score: +2,490. Well bid.*
*Scores will be posted on the club noticeboard. Mrs. Collins is unable to say which of the players made the contract.*