Bridge of AngST

Having returned to Singapore for the December holidays, and needing some practice with Jackie for this weekend’s Youth Teams, we decided to play Thursday morning game even though this is MPs and not IMPs…

♠ QJxxx ♥ AQ ♦ KQx ♣ AKJ

♠ AKT7 ♥ T8xxxx ♦ ♣ QT7

Against relatively weak opponents, how do you play 4S? How would you play 6S? How would you bid the 2 hands after north opens 2NT?

I played badly, and still got a joint top. Why do I say so? I was in 4S, receiving the lead of diamond A. Now I erred by only drawing 2 rounds of trumps and taking the heart finesse. This lost and a heart was returned for a ruff. Hence I only made 11 tricks. If only I had drawn 3 rounds of trumps instead!

♠ x ♥ QJTxx ♦ ♣ AQJxxxx

Now after partner opens 1NT and you hear 3D on your right, how would you bid? I chose 6C, which was raised to 7 by partner, going 1 off. There were plenty of NT contracts going down more so -50 seems to be a winner. Andre suggests that 5NT in this situation would be showing a 2 suiter and asking partner to pick one.

♠ xx ♥ QJTxx ♦ KJx ♣ Kxx

♠ xxx ♥ AKx ♦ Axx ♣ A98x

I opened the W hand 1H and it went 1H-2C-2H-3H-4H (I really shouldn’t have opened! But having done so I should cue bid) and now I get the lead of the Q of clubs! I ran it to my K in hand, drew trumps in 3 rounds, led a small club, now LHO plays small and I insert the 9 which holds, cash the A, play a small club discarding a spade and now LHO returns a diamond. No one else made +450 of course!

How I’m wishing that CPL Div 5 would be this easy…Or Youth teams this weekend!

A return to Friday night Pairs at SCBA after 3 weeks. The search for a partner proved elusive…until I found Jason aka Pinochio on BBO.

We finished 3rd with 54.5% thanks to several lucky boards:

First up, a really bad slam that makes.

Dealer E Vul - Scoring MP Lead	♠ 743 ♥ KJ ♦ 7 ♣ AQJ432
♠ KQ ♥ Q63 ♦ KQT92 ♣ 985		♠ AJ652 ♥ A954 ♦ A863 ♣
	♠ T98 ♥ T872 ♦ J54 ♣ KT7

6D did I hear you say? We played in 6S!

After the lead, Jason led a small heart from table to hand, N dropping the J. He thus decided to play for a 3-3 break in trumps and N for KJ bare in Hearts. Small from hand to small to table felled the K and 12 tricks was for the taking.

Not as fortituous, but the way Jason played it amazed even our opponents.

Dealer N Vul - Scoring MP Lead	♠ 5 ♥ AT98754 ♦ J ♣ T976
♠ Q982 ♥ Q3 ♦ T98643 ♣ 5		♠ KJT763 ♥ K6 ♦ 52 ♣ KJ4
	♠ A4 ♥ J2 ♦ AKQ7 ♣ AQ832

Bidding was simple: After Jason opened 4H, I did a check on keycards and placed the contract in 6H.

How did he play it? He played the trumps by playing A and another! When E (a well-known expert in local circles) played the K on the 2nd round and saw his partner contribute the Q, he raised an eyebrow. After the hand was over, he tried to lecture Jason on his method of playing the hand. No comments =)

Some bad mistakes by me include holding up Aces unnecessarily on defence. This happened at least twice, rather expensively. Once on the other board in the same round as the preceding example, allowing E to make 1NT+2 when 7 tricks was the maximum.

And of course, we have free gifts.

Dealer S Vul E/W Scoring MP Lead	♠ T85 ♥ A72 ♦ K852 ♣ T84
♠ Q974 ♥ QT983 ♦ Q3 ♣ K7		♠ AKJ6 ♥ K4 ♦ T7 ♣ AQ953
	♠ 32 ♥ J65 ♦ AJ964 ♣ J62

I can’t remember the exact bidding, but After I bid to 4S as W, S took a very long time to think, and finally returned with a bid of 5D, which Jason was happy to double.

Having seen Jason open 1C, I was happy to lead KC and another, which eventually led to a result of down 4 for a happy score of +800. (Which was a top, of course)