Saturday, February 05, 2011

Bridge Match 1 - Board 121

Board 121 – Dealer North – EW Vul

My hand: A T 9 4 2 Q 6 3 K 9 8 T 5

East opens 1 club in 2nd chair. I double. West bids 1 heart and partner jumps to 3 diamonds. East bids 3 hearts. I bid 3 spades and partner raises to 4. East doubles for penalty. Should I run to 5 diamonds? Diamonds is probably a better spot but I doubt it's two tricks better so I pass as does everyone else.

West leads the 9 of clubs.


NORTH
J 3
7 5
A 7 4 3 2
K Q 6 4
WEST
9



SOUTH
A T 9 4 2
Q 6 3
K 9 8
T 5


West North East South
Pass 1 Double
1 3 33
Pass 4 Double1All Pass
1Penalty

Huh. I guess we don't have a double fit. I wonder why partner decided to raise. I was just competing. I have 3 spades, 1 club, and 2 diamond tricks. I don't exactly have a lot of play for more tricks. I might be able to pick up a spade honour, or ruff a heart, or maybe win my T of clubs if West lead the 9 from J9(x).

That doesn't seem very likely. 9-K-A-5. East returns the A of hearts. A-6-2-5. East shifts back to clubs. J-T-3-Q. I can get my heart ruff now, so I go for it. 7-K-3-4. Guess I don't need to get a ruff after all, since my Q is now good.

East comes back with yet another club. Could clubs really be 5-2? Yes, I think they are. Can I gain by pitching a diamond loser instead of ruffing? Not really, since West will just pitch too and East will play another high club afterwards. So I ruff highish. 8-9 of spades-5 of diamonds-4. I think it's time to put a stop to that by pitching my last club. I cash a heart. Q-T-6 of clubs-8.

I play a diamond up to board so I can finesse spades. 8-6-A-T. 3-5-T-K. West fires back a diamond. Q-2-J-K. My diamond in hand is actually high now, once I finish dealing with spades. Cashing the A is only terrible when spades split 4-1, but nothing is good when that's true. So I do it anyway. A-6-J-Q. West still has a high spade. Down 2, doubled. Oh, what's this? Spades actually were 4-2 since we didn't have a fit. Right. West has two high spades and I didn't force him to ruff a diamond so I'm actually down 4. Oops.


NORTH
J 3
7 5
A 7 4 3 2
K Q 6 4

WEST
K 8 7 6
J T 4 2
Q 6 5
9 3

EAST
Q 5
A K 9 8
J T
A J 8 7 2

SOUTH
A T 9 4 2
Q 6 3
K 9 8
T 5


Professor Jack disagrees with my double. He says it promises 11 points and wants me to overcall instead. I don't like that thought process. I can see the case for saying I should pass, but double vs overcall shouldn't be a points thing. It should be a distribution thing. And with reasonable support for all 3 other suits and no concentration of power in spades, well, I like double. He then dislikes 3 spades and wants me to pass. My think was I wanted partner to know my distribution in case he had a good sac over 4 hearts since we're white on red. Clearly we were on different pages here, since he sacced before they even made it to 4 hearts and didn't have a good sac since he only had 2 spades.

Duriing the play, Jack doesn't want me to pitch a club when I cash my heart Q. He wants me to pitch a very irrelevant diamond. I don't see why. He then doesn't want me to draw trump. He wants me to just run diamonds. Finally he disagrees with exiting a low trump at the end which was clearly wrong. I just lost count of spades when I did it. That one's on me for sure.


On the replay they get to 3 hearts and stop. It turns out this is actually too high for them, and they go down 1.

Looking at it again, why did my partner jump to 3 diamonds? I took it as being weak which is why I was thinking of needing to sac over 4 hearts. But he did have a 10 count, and a misfit 10-count at that since most of his power is in the suit I doubled for takeout.

Nick: -800
Jack: 100
IMPs: -14 (-34 total)

No comments: