My hand: ♠ 7 ♥ K J 8 6 ♦ A 9 8 ♣ J T 8 6 4
I pass. West opens 2 clubs, strong. Partner passes. East bids 2 diamonds, waiting. Jack refuses to clarify what that means. I pass and West bids 2 spades. East bids 3 hearts which appears to be game forcing with a heart suit. West bids 3 spades, East goes to 4 which is passed out. Partner leads the 9 of clubs.
North ♣ 9 | ||
East ♠ 9 3 ♥ T 9 7 5 4 3 ♦ J ♣ K Q 3 2 | ||
| SOUTH ♠ 7 ♥ K J 8 6 ♦ A 9 8 ♣ J T 8 6 4 |
| West | North | East | South |
| Pass | |||
| 2♣1 | Pass | 2♦2 | Pass |
| 2♠3 | Pass | 3♥ | Pass |
| 3♠ | Pass | 4♠ | All Pass |
| 1Strong | |||
| 2Waiting | |||
| 3Forcing | |||
Unless partner underlead his A it looks like declarer has 3 club tricks. Oh well, not much I can do about that. 9-2-T-A. Declarer exits a diamond. 4-K-J-?. If partner lead a stiff club then I could overtake and give him a ruff. But if he wanted me to get in, why didn't he duck the diamond? Hopefully he'll return a trump to cut down on diamond ruffs in dummy. I play the 8.
Partner doesn't return a club or a trump. Instead he plays the Q of hearts. I encourage. Q-3-8-A. Declarer ruffs a diamond. 5-3-3 of spades-9. Then he draws trump. 9-7-A-8. And another. K-T-3 of clubs-?. Declarer can have at most 2 clubs left in his hand and has 2 high clubs on board so I don't see any reason to keep my clubs. I pitch the 4. Declarer plays a club. 7-5-Q-8. And another. K-8-q of diamonds-2 of diamonds.
It turns out partner has the Q of spades so he gets to take it as well. Declarer has the rest since he started with 7 spades. Making 5.
| NORTH ♠ Q T 8 ♥ Q 2 ♦ K T 7 6 3 2 ♣ 9 5 | ||
| WEST ♠ A K J 6 5 4 2 ♥ A ♦ Q 5 4 ♣ A 7 | EAST ♠ 9 3 ♥ T 9 7 5 4 3 ♦ J ♣ K Q 3 2 | |
| SOUTH ♠ 7 ♥ K J 8 6 ♦ A 9 8 ♣ J T 8 6 4 |
On the replay the auction is the same. The play differs at the start with Jack following Professor Jack's plan. He does return a club, hoping partner lead a singleton. It really doesn't matter as declarer still has 2 losers. Making 5.
Nick: -650
Jack: -650
IMPs: 0 (-26 total)
2 diamonds "waiting" apparently doesn't say anything about your hand at all. It's purely a relay back to declarer asking them to describe their hand more.
ReplyDeleteBidding over 2 clubs in standard systems has never made sense to me. There never seems to be enough space to work out what level to play at. (3? 4? 6? 7?)
ReplyDeleteI don't remember the structure we used, but Sky and I had a great system to help by using two different strong bids and a step system of responses. It also let us play 2NT as a terrible preempt in one of the minors, which is apparently an illegal bid at many tournament levels.