Bridge Match 2 - Board 11

Board 11 – Dealer South – None Vul

Opponents convention card: Jack
Opponents playing strength: Adequate

My hand: ♠ K 5 ♥ A Q 7 ♦ K T 7 6 3 ♣ J T 6

I open a weak 1NT. It gets passed around to East who bids 2 clubs to show both majors. I bid 2 diamonds which gets alerted. That's scary. West jumps to 3 spades and East continues to 4 spades. Partner leads the 2 of diamonds.

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

West	North	East	South
			1NT
Pass	Pass	2♣1	2♦2
3♠	Pass	4♠	All Pass
1Majors
25 cards

2-4-K-A. Declarer draws trump. 8-6-2-K. I fire back a diamond for partner. 7-Q-9-5. Declarer draws more trump. 9-7-4-5. T-3-Q-3 of diamonds. Then he plays a low heart. What does that mean? I can hop up with the Q and have 3 tricks. Where is the 4th coming from? Maybe partner has a club trick. We can't have a diamond trick since if partner has the outstanding J then declarer can ruff it. Maybe we actually have 3 heart tricks if partner has the T and hoping now throws away the contract. For that to be true declarer would need to have 3 hearts without the T and the AK of clubs. Can ducking hurt? When declarer has the T of hearts and only has 1 or 2 hearts, yes.

Why is he even playing a low heart here? If he has fewer than 3 hearts in his hand he could just finesse twice. Unless he doesn't have hand entries. But if he doesn't have hand entries, we have club tricks. I feel like it probably doesn't matter which I do. But maybe we can set them more if I duck and let partner score his T. Run it!

5-7-8-9. Partner tries to cash his high diamond, which gets ruffed. Declarer finesses a heart to the J and my Q. Looks like they're down. How can we make sure to take all our tricks? Pounding clubs through seems like the way to do it. J-Q-K-3. Partner returns a club to my T and declarer's A. Declarer plays a heart to my A. Dummy is up. Except declarer decides that rather than ruff my diamond and cash his high heart he'd rather pitch his high heart and lose an extra trick for funsies. Down 3.

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

+150 was a top board. Other results were 3 spades being down 1 three times, 3 spades making once, 2 hearts making twice, and 1NT down 1 from my side.

Professor Jack agrees with me all the way!

Ranking after board 11/60: 9/16 with 49.35%.