For Old Lang Syne

Tonight Pamela Nisbett and I reunited for a few fun hands.  We had a nice auction on this hand I thought.

I held S AQ62 H 3 DAQJ C AK973

After 3 passes I opened 1C.  Pamela bid 1H and with 20 high card points I better jump shift even with the stiff heart.  I bid 2S and Pamela bid 4D.  I thought about it for a while and I decided that with the stiff heart and the wasted diamond cards I didn’t have enough to push for slam.  Besides that Pamela had heard me jump shift.  Pamela held

S K1097 H KJ752 D 5 C 1054

She made a nice call with 4D.  I wonder if she would have bid on over 4S with the HA?  Probably not.   In retrospect maybe I should have have made a slam try.  You can actually make 6S on these cards if you guess which hand has the diamond king.  The ruffing finesse in diamonds work, spades are 3-2 and clubs are 3-3 so slam can be made.

The next hand was fun.  I held S Q85 H 75 D J95 C AQJ103.  Pamela opened 1S and I heard my vulnerable opponent overcall 2C.  This was just too good to pass up and when Pamela nicely balanced doubled for me we were in the place I wanted to be.  West did actually have his overcall I think.  He held S- H AK4 D K87 C K986542.  He was just unlucky that the clubs split 7-5-1.

Pamela made a thoughtful play on the defence.  We had punched declarer so that his trump length and mine were equal but I had all the high trump.  I also held a spade and heart while declarer held two high hearts.  Pamela was in on a heart honour and she returned a heart.  If I held the high heart I was claiming while if she had returned a spade declarer could ruff it for one extra trick.  As it was it didn’t matter because declarer held high hearts but it was a fine play so late at night.

It was a lot of fun and I don’t think we had any bad boards at all.  Pamela and Karen are practising late tonight.  Good luck to them in Beijing.