Bridge of AngST

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.

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!