Sunday, July 14, 2013

Bridge Match 2 - Board 9

Board 9 – Dealer North – EW Vul

Opponents convention card: Jack.
Opponents playing strength: Adequate.

My hand:  T 8 5 3  6 4  J 9  J 8 7 5 3

Partner opens a weak NT. I wish I knew/remembered what system Jack uses over a weak NT. With my 2 count the opponents have the points for game, and they're vulnerable compared to us being not vulnerable. So I want to chew up bidding space. With Andrew I'd bid 3 clubs to play. Lets see if Jack agrees. Looks like no, since he alerted it. That's scary. He then bid 3 diamonds. I'll pass that out. I feel like we're about to go down a billion.

East leads the A of spades.


NORTH
 J 4
A Q T 2
 A 7 2
Q T 6 4

EAST
A

SOUTH
T 8 5 3
6 4
J 9
J 8 7 5 3


West North East South
1NT Pass 31
Pass 32 All Pass 4
1Transfer, weak or game forcing
2Transfered

Well, they have 8 trump. I will be taking 1 diamond, and 1 heart. And I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if that was all we took. They take the first spade and switch to a diamond. I win and play a second spade in the hopes of somehow setting up a ruff. They win, draw a second round of trump, and return a third spade. So I get my ruff after all. I then play a club and East is nice enough to win and draw more trump. They win some more tricks and eventually lead a heart through my AQT. I go with the Q which wins. I also get the A later. Down 5.


NORTH
 J 4
A Q T 2
 A 7 2
Q T 6 4

WEST
7 6 2
K 9 8 7
K Q 4 3
A 9

EAST
♠ A K Q 9
J 5 3
T 8 6 5
K 2

SOUTH
T 8 5 3
6 4
J 9
J 8 7 5 3


Professor Jack disagrees with my 3 club bid, but for a very cryptic reason. His complaint is that with two five card suits I should bid the highest first. I don't have two five card suits, Jack. And my bid made perfect sense if we don't play transfers! We're still down which sucks since they didn't have a game, but it seemed like a reasonable gamble at the time. Though if I pass 1NT I feel like they should be able to find a part score at least? Or maybe this is the big advantage of playing weak NTs in that they might not find a good spot to end up. If I'd had just a little more than 2 points I would have passed I think.

It turns out that despite having 25 points the opponents don't really have a good fit and can't really make game. At other tables they went down twice in 3NT and once in 2 spades. They made 2 spades, and 4 diamonds. They did make 3NT up one once, which was the only result worse than mine. At one table my side even made 1NT. So we get 2 MPs. Not bad considering the disastrous bidding! I guess Jack tries to play constructively over a weak NT?

I went into the convention card and turned off transfers over 1NT. I then tried bidding it again, and we end up in 3 clubs. I went down 1 as expected, which was still a bad board. I tried passing out 1NT, but we went down 2. I don't see how we can either make the opponents bid and go down or make anything we bid ourselves. Oh well! At least down 1 or down 2 is better than the two times the opponents made partscores, so we would have done a little better without the bidding mistake.

Ranking after board 9/60: 9/16 with 49.21%

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