Bridge Match 3 - Board 22

Board 22 - Dealer East - EW Vul

Opponents convention card: Bridge World Standard
Opponents playing strength: Good

My hand: ♠ K 9 8 ♥ 5 ♦ K Q T 8 2 ♣ Q T 9 7

West opens 2 hearts in 3rd seat, which is a preempt. East jumps to 4 hearts which is possibly preemptive. Partner has to have a hand here if East and I couldn't open and West has a preempt. I have support for all the other suits (K98 of spades is a little sketchy, but whatever) and I have pretty much a maximum for a passed hand. So I double, hopefully for takeout. Partner bids 4 spades which gets passed out.

East leads the J of hearts.

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

West	North	East	South
		Pass	Pass
2♥1	Pass	4♥2	Double3
Pass	4♠	Pass	Pass
Pass
1Weak two
2Possibly preemptive
3Competitive

J-5-Q-9. West shifts to a club and it's time to think. We have that heart loser, a club loser, and a spade loser for sure. Diamonds are solid. We probably have a second spade loser, though. And the second club might get ruffed. There's not a lot of play to the hand though. Draw trump when I can and hope I can hold the spade losers to as few as possible. The club goes 8-4-A-7. A club back. 6-9-3-J. I fire a low spade around. 4-3-?... Am I supposed to finesse here? If East has specifically JT3 that'll potentially let me make the contract. He also has to have the last club. Going high is right when East has the A of spades. Any A has to be more likely than specifically JT3 with the 3rd club, so I hop. 4-3-K-2.

Ok, that's definitely a start. East has the A of spades now. I need him to have specifically A3 and not have the last club. That doesn't feel very likely. And actually, with the enemies having AJT left between them I have no way to make. I lose 2 spades here for sure. So I just want to try to hold it to down 1. Which is actually guaranteed as long as I draw trump. So I do that. 9-T-Q-A. East draws the last trump out. Hmm. Now I lose an extra heart too. Man, I'm bad. Down 2.

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

Three tables passed this hand out which seems insane to me. I'd open both the East and West hands! EW made 3 hearts once, went down 1 in 3 hearts once, and went down 1 in 4 hearts once. The other 2 tables went down 2 in 4 spades. Which is worth 3MPs. Holding it to down 1 was possibly, but only worth 1 more MP so not a super big deal.


Jack disagrees with my double. He wonders what I had in mind. I wanted to show a maximum with low numbers of hearts. I think that's a good thing to show on this auction. Jack also disagrees with my throwing away a trick by not ruffing a heart once I won the first spade trick, which is totally fair.

Ranking after board 22/60: 8/16 with 51.3%