Bridge of AngST

Poor defence by me. A diamond return earlier would have killed the contract instantly.

Not spotting declarer’s discard of the spade 8, I returned the 7 later in the play when the 9 would have clarified the position better…

	♠ KTx ♥ A8xxx ♦ J8 ♣ KTx
♠ xxxx ♥ Qx ♦ 96 ♣ J9876		♠ Axx ♥ KT9 ♦ AQT42 ♣ xx
	♠ QJx ♥ Jxx ♦ K7xx ♣ AQx

The auction at our table stopped in 3NT after South opens 1N and North transfers to hearts. Would you want to be defending or declaring?

This was the last hand of Friday evening.

♠ AK84 ♥ K82 ♦ KQ4 ♣ Q86

♠ QT95 ♥ AJT ♦ J873 ♣ AK

The bidding went…let’s not talk about it for the time being. After a lead of the club 4, how do you play for 12 tricks?

I made the poor choice of driving out the diamond Ace, playing spades, and finessing West for the heart Queen after finding West short in both hearts and diamonds. East took the Queen of hearts and cashed the Jack of Diamonds. 10 tricks. The full hand was:

	♠ AK84 ♥ K82 ♦ KQ4 ♣ Q86
♠ J6 ♥ 9764 ♦ T2 ♣ T7543		♠ 732 ♥ Q53 ♦ A965 ♣ J92
	♠ QT95 ♥ AJT ♦ J873 ♣ AK

The bidding at my table was 1NT-4NT-AP. Everyone else was in 6NT making except for a pair who were in 4NT+2! So I had lost just half a matchpoint. But this was the least of my concerns, one of which was partner underbidding. Okay, that was half in jest. How did I manage to misdeclare this hand?

Kelvin had seen the play as he had a sitout in the last round and this was what he offered me: Play only 2 rounds of diamonds, cash out the black suits. Now the play would be consistent with West having 5 clubs, spades and 4 hearts. It is now possible to throw East in with a heart and endplay him in diamonds.

Looks like I have much work to do for the next 3 months before school restarts.

Realised that Poon Hua/CC Loo seem to be featuring in this on BBO pretty frequently nowadays. This was from today’s match, board 15:

Dealer S Vul N/S Scoring Imp Lead ♠6	♠ AT83 ♥ 9862 ♦ KJ65 ♣ 2
♠ QJ92 ♥ A4 ♦ 9873 ♣ KJ4		♠ 764 ♥ J73 ♦ AQT2 ♣ T75
	♠ K5 ♥ KQT5 ♦ 4 ♣ AQ9863

Bidding was fairly standard, 1C-1H-3H-4H.

At the table which I kibitzed, North took the lead with K in dummy, low diamond to the jack, trump return to the A, and ruffed the diamond return. Now a spade back to hand to take the club finesse. After a diamond return, declarer was down 2 unhappily.

At the other table, smispi played differently. the 4 was led instead of the 6, the spade was taken in hand, club to the A, club ruff, heart to Q and A. After a round of diamonds and winning the spade return, another club ruff and a successful finesse of the heart ten meant 11 tricks.

Excellent play for 13 imps.

So on Sunday, during our usual meeting session, James suddenly comes in all flustered and asks if I can play on Monday evening. After some exchange of SMSes as to whether we were playing at home or away, I found myself sitting opposite Rachel in Meeting Room 6 in Student Union HQ. The opposing team has Martin Jones playing.

The first 12 boards were terrible, but not a disaster, actually they were fine except for the two boards which gave away most of the 8-29 scoreline.

How would you play this 3NT contract after 1NT-3NT on a 2 of club lead?

♠ Qxx ♥ Kx ♦ Jxx ♣ AJT98

♠ Kxx ♥ QT87x ♦ Axx ♣ Kx

I won the first trick (E contributed the Q) with the K and played low towards K of hearts. Taken by A, K diamond return which I ducked and now a small heart on which I played the T losing to the J. One down.

Still wondering if I should play the clubs first, since after a spade lead by teammates, declarer ran the clubs, guessed hearts right and made +2.

The 2nd half was 20-23, with 16 of our imps coming in on one board where Rachel made 5HX helped by misdefence while 6HX went 2 off at the other table.

As this was KO match (cup match?), the margin didn’t matter though.

I saw this on one of the Cayne vs Weed Team Match on BBO the other day:

Dealer W Vul All Scoring Imp Lead ♥A	♠ QT92 ♥ J743 ♦ 5 ♣ T532
♠ 874 ♥ T2 ♦ K872 ♣ AK96		♠ KJ6 ♥ Q8 ♦ AJT943 ♣ J8
	♠ A53 ♥ AK965 ♦ Q6 ♣ Q74

After losing 2 hearts, drawing trumps, playing the spade to the J and A, Garozzo won the spade continuation and ran trumps to reach:

	♠ Q ♥ ♦ ♣ T53
♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ AK96		♠ 6 ♥ ♦ 3 ♣ J8
	♠ ♥ 9 ♦ ♣ Q74

South still has a club guard after North discards a club, but Garozzo now just runs the J of club to score the tenth trick.

Lately I have been missing obvious plays and such while kibitzing. I have no idea why as well, so if I make any gibberish comments to you, well yeah….forgive me, I am having a bad patch, and of course, please tell me.

This happened at the table as well, when I messed up the play on this 3NT contract:

Dealer E Vul N/S Scoring Imp Lead ♦3	♠ A842 ♥ A5 ♦ 8 ♣ QJ8743
♠ T965 ♥ KT9 ♦ KQ53 ♣ T2		♠ QJ7 ♥ J43 ♦ 97642 ♣ A6
	♠ K3 ♥ Q8762 ♦ AJT ♣ K95

After winning the diamond lead, I forced out the club Ace, won the diamond return with the Ace, cashed Ace of spades, and ran the clubs.

	♠ 84 ♥ A5 ♦ ♣ 4
♠ T ♥ K9 ♦ KQ ♣ T2		♠ QJ ♥ J4 ♦ 7 ♣
	♠ K ♥ Q87 ♦ J ♣

On the last club, East does best to discard a diamond, and I will discard a heart from hand.

If West discards a spade, I can cash the King of spades and he will be squeezed again, either unguarding the hearts, or giving up a diamond and then thrown in to lead away from the K8 in hearts.

If West discards a diamond, I just cash the spade, and throw him in with a diamond for an endplay in hearts.

If West discards a heart, the Q of hearts is good after the fall of the K on the A.

But of course, I screwed it all up by cashing the King of spades first. Don’t ask me why. That took out my entry for the squeeze.

Andre was very nice about it after the hand (The difference between +1 and +2 only, at IMPs!) but of course, I couldn’t forgive myself…

This happened last Friday at SCBA when I was playing with Danen. I was sitting

Dealer W Vul - Scoring MP Lead ♥7	♠ AJ2 ♥ KJ97 ♦ 732 ♣ J93
♠ QT843 ♥ A8 ♦ JT984 ♣ 6		♠ 65 ♥ 653 ♦ AKQ6 ♣ AQ82
	♠ K97 ♥ QT42 ♦ 5 ♣ KT754

The bidding was terrible to begin with:

Surveying dummy, the first thing that crossed my mind was to strangle partner =). But to the task at hand, how to make 3NT? Or at least limit the damage? I ducked the heart lead and received a diamond back. Then I led a spade, won by the A, after another diamond return, I led a spade to the T and K. The club finesse worked so I took a heart, 5 diamonds, 1 spade and 2 clubs.

Confused? I reproduced the hand from the hand record sheet. In reality, the W and E hands were exchanged when we played them!

Dealer E Vul - Scoring MP Lead ♥4	♠ AJ42 ♥ K86 ♦ QT76 ♣ J3
♠ QT9763 ♥ 93 ♦ J52 ♣ 72		♠ 85 ♥ AJT42 ♦ K43 ♣ T64
	♠ K ♥ Q75 ♦ A98 ♣ AKQ985

I was North playing in 3NT after East had overcalled in hearts. Winning the heart lead in hand, I cashed the clubs, KS to reach this position:

	♠ AJ ♥ 8 ♦ QT ♣
♠ Q9 ♥   ♦ J52 ♣		♠   ♥ AJT42 ♦ K4 ♣
	♠   ♥ Q5 ♦ A98 ♣

Now I led a low diamond towards the Queen, and this ended any chance for 11 tricks. If I had cashed Ace first and led towards the Queen, or played the ten instead of the queen, I would have gotten 11 tricks.

But perhaps the best line is to play on diamonds first. This wins 12 tricks: 2 spades, 3 diamonds, 6 clubs and a heart if East doesn’t take his 2 tricks.

Last night, some of the juniors asked me for a team match in preparation for nationals today and tomorrow. I managed to grab Andre to play.

The 2nd board was rather interesting:

Dealer E Vul N/S &nbps;	♠ 7 ♥ Q93 ♦ T9753 ♣ J952
♠ AKT864 ♥ JT6 ♦ QJ6 ♣ Q		♠ 53 ♥ K742 ♦ K2 ♣ A8743
	♠ QJ92 ♥ A85 ♦ A84 ♣ KT6

At my table, the bidding went:

Let me explain the bidding. I was West. Now 1NT was for takeout, 2NT should show 5-5 in 2 unknown suits. We had no agreement after that, so 3C was pick a suit I hoped, but it turned out that Andre forgot about 2NT and thought it was invitational. (As 1NT could be passed out with a club stopper to play.)

I received the lead of the 2 of clubs.  I ducked the first round, South returning a spade. I inserted the T and it held. Now I cashed the King and received the news of the 4-1 split. I ducked a spade, South returning a diamond which dummy’s K won. Now I made the mistake of not counting, and ducked a club which I could not afford to do. Actually I was in BIG trouble now since I could not return to hand to my spades. However, South returned another diamond and I made 8 tricks. This was better than the other table which made only 7 tricks (which rightfully should be).

The rest of it was a scrap. We ended up in 3NT next after a weak 2H opener by me, other table reached 4H. Both games were good, but they somehow went down 1 doubled.  We passed out the next board, while opps in our position reached 3NT down 3. A 3NT vs 2NT game swing to us, and it was already 30-0.

Next 3 boards were bad, as Andre and I had a misunderstanding and let opps play in 2DX+1, then a game swing against us, as I thought Andre had wasted values and hence passed the invite, when he had a pointless 5 card suit! Then a partscore swing against us.

Last 3 boards saw a partscore vs passout swing to us, some misunderstanding (again!) which let them made game doubled, last board was a game swing to us.

Final score: 40-30, but it was marred by the fact that the opps at our table were having connection problems.

Not the best definitely, but it goes to show that our overcall structure notes are still not comprehensive enough. Time for a rethink/further extension?