Um, okay, that was fun - - ?

Starman and I played a solo Swiss teams event last week.

On one particular board, Starman opened 2 ♣ (showing 22+ high card points) and I bid 2 ♦, which is the standard "tell me more" bid. He then bid 2NT, signifying a balanced hand and 22-24 points. I was holding the following cards:

♠ Jxxxx
♥ J10xxxx
♦
♣ xx

Clearly, I wanted to Starman to play a game in a major (the void counts as 5 distribution points if my hand is the dummy in a suit contract), so I want to transfer. I bid 3 ♦. Starman considered this, and passed! I literally played the contact with no trumps in my hand, and only three in his hand. Mind you, they were the AKQ, but still. At the end of the hand, I said to our teammates that it's the only time I can imagine saying, truthfully, that I was relieved the trumps split 5-5!

Not to worry -- I was right: we do play transfers in that situation. Starman looked into it later, and we agree we won't miss that again. And I wasn't upset -- shocked, but not upset -- as I can well imagine making that mistake myself in that situation. And also, I kind of knew that we'd not discussed transfers in that situation. I had contemplated bidding 3 so that he'd either let me play in hearts, or he'd transfer and play in spades. But 3 was the right bid.

Hey, stuff like this happens.