Bridge Match 1 - Board 48

Board 48 – Dealer West – NS Vul

My hand: ♠ 8 7 3 ♥ A T 2 ♦ K Q 7 ♣ K 9 6 2

West opens 1 heart. Partner passes and East bids 1 spade. I double. West bids 2 diamonds, partner passes, and East jumps to 4 hearts. Nice of me to double and show them where all the points are. I pass as does everyone else.

Partner leads the 2 of diamonds.

	NORTH ♦ 2
		EAST ♠ K 9 5 2 ♥ 6 5 4 ♦ 6 ♣ A Q T 8 7
	SOUTH ♠ 8 7 3 ♥ A T 2 ♦ K Q 7 ♣ K 9 6 2

West	North	East	South
1♥	Pass	1♠	Double1
2♦	Pass	4♥	All Pass
15-4 (4-4) clubs-diamonds

2-6-Q-A. Declarer fires back another diamond. 5-8-4 of hearts-7. He then cashes the A of clubs. A-2-6 of spades-5. And then shifts to a spade. 2-3-Q-A.

Partner decides to start belatedly drawing trump. 8-5-A-3. I concur. 2-Q-9-6. Declarer finishes the job. J-3 of clubs-5 of spades-T. And now back to spades. 4-T-K-8.

Declarer changes to clubs. 7-6-7 of hearts-4. Declarer throws me in with a diamond. 9-3-8 of clubs-K.

Declarer has 3 cards left. I know one is the 13th heart and that he doesn't have a club. There's only 1 spade left and only 1 club left. Partner has to have the club. That means there are 3 diamonds left between declarer and partner.

If declarer has the J of spades he gets to score it and his heart and I need to just hope partner has the high diamond. If declarer has two diamonds then I again need to hope partner has the high diamond. What I play doesn't matter, so I play my high club. Declarer ruffs and cashes his 2 high diamonds. Making 4.

	NORTH ♠ A J T ♥ 9 8 ♦ 8 4 3 2 ♣ J 5 4 3
WEST ♠ Q 6 4 ♥ K Q J 7 3 ♦ A J T 9 5 ♣		EAST ♠ K 9 5 2 ♥ 6 5 4 ♦ 6 ♣ A Q T 8 7
	SOUTH ♠ 8 7 3 ♥ A T 2 ♦ K Q 7 ♣ K 9 6 2

Professor Jack dislikes my double. He says it's wrong because of playing tasty sandwiches. Yeah, I didn't have 4 diamonds, but I was close!

He also says I signaled wrong on the A of clubs. He's right, I clearly showed an odd number when I had an even number. Of course since declarer ruffed partner shouldn't have been too confused.


On the replay my seat doesn't double and they get to 4 hearts anyway. On the play, however, declarer manages to mangle everything. He ruffs several clubs for no reason at all and loses trump control. The defense ends up able to cash an extra spade and an extra club to put them down 2. I can't think of a good reason why he'd play that way. I forced his play a few times and he always went back to ruffing clubs, losing trump control, and going down. I finally forced his play every time he tried to ruff extra clubs and he eventually made.

Not sure why he found the winning play at my table and the losing one at the other table. If my lying double had pinpointed cards or something I'd understand it, but this was simply the inability to see ahead and realize you'd run out of trump if you randomly threw your trumps away.

Maybe the difference was they got a diamond lead at my table which made it obvious that he could pick up the suit where at their table they lead a club.

Nick: -620
Jack: 200
IMPs: -13 (-31 total)