Story by Art Seelen (BBO: Artie2t)

About 18 years ago, I was on the USA team playing in the Maccabi Games, which were being held in Berlin. When we first entered the duplicate bridge room, we saw bridge tables with strange-looking wooden structures. We had never seen anything like them before. We soon learned they were designed to prevent eye contact with your partner. There was also a small opening at the bottom that allowed a tray containing the bids from your partner and your right-hand opponent to be slid under the screen when it was your turn to bid. The whole setup was quite intimidating for our team, as we had no international experience.

At one point, after our opponents knocked on the screen to signal they had finished bidding, we opened the little window and they slid the tray under. It was now my turn to bid. I saw what I thought was my partner's opening bid of 1NT, so I raised it to 3NT.

My left-hand opponent wrote me a note asking what my 3NT bid meant. I didn't understand the question and simply wrote back, "Game." He looked puzzled and eventually bid 4♠. Obviously, I should have doubled, but with all the confusion about what was happening, I meekly passed.

It turned out to be a good thing I did, because it wasn't my partner who had opened 1NT. It was my right-hand opponent! How could that happen, you ask? I had misunderstood the layout of the bidding tray and couldn't tell who had made the 1NT opening bid. I can laugh about it now.