Bridge Match 3 - Board 1

Board 1 - Dealer North - None Vul

Opponents convention card: Majeure cinquième
Opponents playing strength: Excellent

My hand: ♠ A K Q J 9 ♥ J 8 ♦ A T 5 ♣ J 8 7

East opens 1 diamond in second seat. I overcall 1 spade, which gets passed back around to East who makes a protective double, whatever that means. (Hovering over it seems to indicate spade shortness, probably to give her partner a chance to pass for penalty.) I pass and West bids 2 spades which apparently denies a spade stopper. East retreats to 3 diamonds. I feel like if partner has anything anywhere they could be going down, but I don't think I can bid again. So I pass and everyone else does too.

I lead the K of spades

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

West	North	East	South
	Pass	1♦	1♠
Pass	Pass	Double1	Pass
2♠2	Pass	3♦	Pass
Pass	Pass
1Protective
28-11 points, no spade stopper

K-5-4-2. So partner doesn't have a high spade. Noted. I'm not too worried about dummy setting up a long suit for pitches so I switch to hearts to try to set up a ruff or something. J-3-9-A. East plays a club. A-7-2-5. Then a heart back to board. 2-8-K-6. A heart back that I can ruff, but partner is actually winning it so I pitch a club. 4-T-5-8 of clubs.

Partner returns a spade, which I guess is a reasonable enough thing to do. 8-3-J-7. I guess I might as well see who has the 13th spade. A-T-6-6 of diamonds. Declarer then cashes a club and tries to ruff a club. I overruff with the T.

I'm now stuck with the last 2 spades and Ax of trump. I can give everyone pitches and finesse partner in trump, or I can go ace and out of diamonds and finesse him that way. I feel like partner has the outside suits covered, so drawing trump is probably right. They end up cross ruffing anyway. Down 1.

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

This ends up being a bad result for us. There was a NS pair that made 2NT, a NS pair that went down 2 in 3 spades, and every other board was EW playing 1NT. 3 of those went down 2, 2 of them went down 1. Our +50 was good enough to beat the 3 spade pair and tie with the 2 who set 1NT by 1. So we get 4 MPs.


Jack disagrees with my spade overcall. He thinks it's capped at 15 points and wants me to double with 16. I do agree that you should start with a double with a good hand but I'm not sure my hand is quite good enough. It's also very one dimensional, and I wanted to make sure partner knew to lead a spade if it came to it. He then disagrees with my pass over the double and wants me to eat up bidding room with a 2 spades bid. Finally he disagrees with my play at trick 2. He wants me to keep cashing spades instead of switching to a heart.

Ranking after board 1/60: 9/16 with 28.57%