Bridge - A game of luck?

Bridge is a game of luck. Experts will disagree, because their quality will materialize in the long run. In Into Bridge you are comparing to one player only. And that can often look like gambling.

So, how does your partnership bid the hand? After the diamond opening, I thought I'd have not much choice. A double would show spades, and 1NT would show a heart stopper. A good idea might be the overcall of 2♥. That should show support in diamonds, some points, and no stopper in hearts. Anyway, we landed in a good contract, and I made 4.

But that was not good enough, because 3NT were bid and made on the other side. That is not a good contract by any measure, and it should go down twice. We can blame Lia for missing the correct defense. But even more interesting is, how 3NT were reached, and that also explains the bad defense. South opened the hand 1♦, and bid 1NT after North 1 response. North naturally raised that to 3NT. Now West and East both were confused about the heart stopper. West led a club. After getting in with the ♦Q, he switched to a heart, but that was not continued in favor of a club return. It gets worse. After East gets in with the ♠A, he returned another club, allowing to make the contract. That is silly.

By chance, 3♠ is the best contract if you play double dummy. In fact, that was reached by three other players (on the King and Queen level). This can only happen if you play Acol or any other system with four card majors. The distribution favors this strange contract. 

Someone made 3♦+2, because East returned a spade after getting in with the ♠A.