So What Did Happen When We Played

Sylvia and I played 25 boards against Sondra and Isabelle today.  I knew it would be fun and it was.  The first twelve were in a team game where our side did get drilled and in the second 13 we played head on head and held out own.  We out pipped them by a couple of imps or so. 

Here is a lead problem Isabelle faced.  You hold

S A2
H 1075
D Q762
C K954

 

Partner opens 2D multi.  The next hand overcalls 2NT which gets passed out. 

The SA does seem like a reasonable lead.  If partner has hearts unless they are splitting 2-2.  Dummy will have a singleton heart and might have looked for a better spot than notrump.  It does seem highly probable that partner has spades.  Unfortunately this showed one of the downsides of multi.  Partner had six heart (the opposition hearts were 2-2) and four spades on the side.  A heart lead beats the game.  Declarer has the AK tight and has to give up the lead twice to make even eight tricks.  On the lead of the SA Sylvia made 4.

On the next hand I had a lead problem against 3NT.  Here is my hand

S Q765

H KJ42

D 543

C A2

 

Isabelle opened 2C in fourth and then rebid 2NT.  Sondra transferred to 3NT and they played there.  Not much help from the bidding.  The argument for a spade lead was that it was less likely to give a trick away completely.  The argument for a heart lead is that you needed less help from partner.  Some times I have a feel about these situations.  This time I didn’t  I am willing to listen to anyway who wants to tell which one is right.  As it turns out a spade lead will beat it for sure.  On a heart or club lead declarer will always make it.  On a passive diamond lead declarer is going to have to guess awfully well.  So if you lead a pointed suit you win.  Here was the whole deal

	S A92
	H A95
	D AQJ109
	C K9
S KJ54		S Q765
H 10763		H KJ42
D 82		D 543
C J53		C A2
	S 108
	H Q8
	D K76
	C Q108764

 

Sylvia and I did pretty well to get to 4S on the deal below.  I am not sure I love my bidding but it got the job done.  We were not vul against vul.

Sylvia

S 5

H A65

D AKQ65

C A985

Linda

S AQJ642

H 4

D 842

C J32

 

Sylvia opened 1D.  Isabelle overcalled 1H and I bid 1S.  Sondra showed a weak heart raise with 2D.  Sylvia bid 3C and I didn’t know exactly what to bid.  I sort of wanted to raise diamonds.    Anyway in the end I bid 3S.  It seemed about right in values and even a small spade fit would make it the right spot.  Sylvia always raises with a stiff in these situations (it’s quite often right) and it worked out fine on the hand.  You are probably going to make 5D too.

A deal I enjoyed a lot because you don’t see it too often was this one.  I held

Linda

S A9

H AQ964

D AJ7432

C –

 

Isabelle opened 1D which was a bit of a surprise. Undaunted I bid 1H and Sondra bid 2C.  Isabelle bid 2D.  Now that really was a surprise.  It went 2D which was only worth a couple of imps but it was fun to defend.  The diamonds were 6-6-1 with Sylvia having the void.

Here is one of those deals where Sondra and Isabelle did well.  The auction is interesting. I am going to give you Sondra’s hand because Isabelle made most of her decisions with the opening bid

S AJ

H J872

D 10872

D KQ3

 

You are not vulnerable against vulnerable and you hear partner open 2S.  This shows 10-14 HCP and a six or seven card spade suit.  You bid 2NT which asks for a description. Partner bids 3S showing a maximum hand, balanced.  Where do you decide to play it?  Sondra picked 3NT which I think has some pluses and minuses.  Your red suits are a bit weak but partner has at least two in each suit so perhaps the opposition can’t take too many tricks there. 

As it turns out the nine trick game is the only one that has a play.  Partner does have a lot of help in the red suits.  Partner has

S Q98642

H AQ3

D KJ

D 76

While it may seem awkward to play LHO me has every high card so the heart finesse works, you only have one spade loser (the ten comes down), the diamond AQ are both onside and I can wiggle and waggle but I will have to give you a tenth trick.  Sondra played it well and I defended it well but frustratingly she held the better position.  Well done.

There were two slam hands our way in the team game.  Both 6D.  We got to one and missed one and so did Francine and Pamela.  Here is the one that they found and we didn’t.  I think they did well to get there.  Let’s see what Pamela did

S KQ1032

H KJ7

D A732

C 6

Francine opened 1D and you bid 1S.  She rebid 1NT.  You bid 2D game forcing checkback I believe.  Francine bid 3D showing five and denying four hearts or three spades.  So you can put her at 5-3-3-2.  Pamela cuebid hearts and when her partner cuebid spades she pretty well made the decision to go to slam.  She bid keycard and Francine showed enough.  Partner hand is

S A4

H 943

D KQ1064

C AJ4

 

Played from Francine’s side it does need a bit of luck.  You don’t really want a heart lead which might lead to immediate defeat and you probably want either diamonds or spades to break or you will have your work cut out.  Everything works on the deal but a sneaky heart opening lead from the HA might win.  Even Francine would likely get that one wrong.  At our table it would have been played from the right side since I opened a weak notrump.  Our auction timed out a bit differently and Sylvia would have had to commit to the four level on a minimum hand.  She did know I was 2-3-3-5 but I was a complete maximum and she had no way of cuebidding without committing to the four level whereas the auction at the other table made it easy for Pamela to make a try with 3H.   Maybe I should have upgraded my hand to 15.  I do have a pretty terrific hand for a weak notrump.  I did consider it.   Then we would have played the wrong side slam too!