Bridge Match 3 - Board 5

Board 5 - Dealer North - NS Vul

Opponents convention card: Dutch Acol
Opponents playing strength: Advanced

My hand: ♠ A J 8 3 ♥ A 4 ♦ Q J T ♣ T 8 7 5

Partner opens 1 club and East passes. I respond 1 spade. West jumps in with 2 hearts, partner bids 2 spades, and East bids 3 hearts. I feel like my 12 points plus partner's opening hand and our known fit should make for a decent game and I don't know how to really figure out otherwise. I have a heart stopper so hopefully nothing disasterous ends up happening. I do wonder if I should give partner choice of games. My hand is super flat. I feel like I probably should bid 3NT and let him decide but I don't know that he'll be able to make that decision. So I just bid 4 spades which gets passed out.

West leads the K of hearts.

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

West	North	East	South
	1♣	Pass	1♠1
2♥	2♠	3♥	4♠
Pass	Pass	Pass
1Walsh

Well, we sure go down in 3NT! We're going to have trouble in 4 spades too. We have a diamond loser, a heart loser, a club loser, and probably 2 spade losers. That's 2 losers too many! The red suit losers aren't going anywhere unless the opponents misplay and let me pitch a heart on a diamond. Nor is one of the spade losers. So I need to pick up the spade suit for only one loser, and I need to pick up the Q of clubs. I feel like I should cut the enemy communication by losing my red stuff first so my plan is to win this and pound out a diamond. That forces them to take their heart or lose it and we'll see what happens after that. K-8-5-A. Over to diamonds. T-8-K-A. East cashes a heart. J-4-2-T. He returns a diamond. 9-Q-2-4.

Ok. Now I think I need to lead a spade up to my hand? Which means a club to the A. 5-2-A-4. Assuming they're not lying with their signals they each have an odd number of clubs with West having 3. That bodes well! I lead a low spade. 5-9-J-K. East returns another spade? 2-6-Q-A. It now feels like I can draw the last trump, finesse clubs, and be up?

I don't even need to finesse clubs since West drops the Q when I lead low. Making 4!

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

Turns out everyone made it to 4 spades. 1 table made 5, 5 tables made 4, and 2 tables went down 1. So we get 8 MPs here.


Captain Jack agrees with me all the way!

Ranking after board 5/60: 8/16 with 54.29%