Bridge Match 2 - Board 18

Board 18 – Dealer East – NS Vul

Opponents convention card: Dutch Doubleton
Opponents playing strength: Adequate

My hand: ♠ 8 2 ♥ A K 9 6 4 ♦ J T ♣ K T 6 3

East opens 1 club which is alerted as Dutch doubleton, forcing. I don't know what that means, but looking at the potential options it looks like 10+ points with either a lot of clubs or a pretty balanced hand. So basically it looks like a normal 1 club opener where he might have only 2 clubs. I overcall 1 heart. West bids 1 spade which gets alerted to show he has at least 5 spades. I just assume that's what it means since he could negative double to show 4... I didn't know that had to be alerted. Partner passes and East jumps to 3 spades which gets passed out.

Partner leads the K of diamonds.

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

West	North	East	South
		1♣1	1♥
1♠2	Pass	3♠	All Pass
1Dutch doubleton, forcing
2At least fivecard

Well, that's a good heart suit for dummy to have for them. With partner not leading a heart I will probably have 2 heart tricks, but I need to wait on them or I'll set up a bunch for declarer too. The diamond trick goes K-3-J-7. He follows up with another. A-9-T-2. And then one more for good luck. Q-6-6 of hearts-5. And then one for the ruff. 4-Q of spades-4 of hearts-8.

All the diamonds are gone. We need two more tricks to set them, and my club K along with the AK of hearts bode well for having that happen. Declarer decides to draw some trump. 4-8-J-3. 6-9-K-2. Now declarer plays out a small heart. What do I need to do? Declarer has 3 spades and 4 round cards in his hand and needs 6 tricks. If he has 1 heart then he has 4 clubs and I will get a club at the end unless I'm forced to lead a club. Which I will have to do when I win this trick unless I want to set up dummy's QJ.

What if I hop and then play my low heart? He can't throw me in again without going down. I won't set up both of the QJ on dummy since I'll keep one of my high cards. That seems like a good line of play.

What if I duck here? If declarer has stiff T of hearts he can win it and then he's gold. Lose a club and cross ruff. Ducking seems wrong then. So up I go. 2-A-7-5. I play low. 9-T-3-J. Oops. I didn't think that out far enough. He gets to cross ruff anyway since he pitches his second club on the 4th heart. So I pitched badly and then played badly and they make. I really wish partner had played a heart or a club instead of that worthless 4th diamond in order to take the play out of my hands.

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

3 spades just in is good for a bottom board but at least one other pair did similar so we get a mere 1MP. Setting them one would have been worth a total of 5MPs. Setting them two, which happens if partner plays a club, would have been worth 9MPs. The top scores went to NS pairs that played in clubs. Did them playing dutch doubleton keep partner from overcalling? He has a pretty good hand, I could definitely see him taking action over 1 spade...

Captain Jack wants me to play the K of clubs when I win the first heart. I guess that works out if partner has the Q, and also works when West has 2 hearts, so it was probably a good play.

Ranking after board 18/60: 6/16 with 51.59%