Bridge Match 3 - Board 25

Board 25 - Dealer North - EW Vul

Opponents convention card: Majeure cinquième
Opponents playing strength: Advanced

My hand: ♠ A K J 8 ♥ A Q 9 6 4 ♦ T 2 ♣ 5 4

I open 1 heart in 3rd chair. Partner responds 3 clubs which should show 6-9 points and a 4 card fit. It's entirely possible his 6 points are in the majors and we have 4 minor suit losers off the top. And if he actually has a minor suit trick we're probably giving up a major trick to get it. So 3 hearts is likely the right place to end up. East has other ideas and gets in there with 3 spades over my 3 hearts bid. Time to take him for a ride.

I lead the K of spades.

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

West	North	East	South
	Pass	Pass	1♥
Pass	3♣1	Pass	3♥
Pass	Pass	3♠	Double2
Pass	Pass	Pass
1Bergen
2Penalty

K-7-6-4. Well, partner sure didn't have points in hearts! And East has a heart void. I have 2 more spade tricks for sure, maybe even 3 as long as I don't touch them again. I think I probably want to take away the entry to board, so I lead a diamond. 2-4-K-3. Partner then is a real pal and cashes the A of clubs. A-6-5-2. He switches back to diamonds to remove that entry. 5-8-T-A.

Declarer is in, but on dummy, and for likely the last time. He uses this entry to fire out a club. 3-9-K-4. Now in hand, he draws trump. Q-A-3-5. If declarer has both the T and 9 of spades I don't get a 4th spade trick no matter what I do, so in that case playing two spades on my own is probably a good thing to do. It means I never play a heart, and I throw declarer in to lead minors to partner if partner has any tricks there. The other option is to cash the A of hearts, which declarer will ruff. This sets up the K of hearts, but declarer probably doesn't have an entry to board in order to cash it. And I can still exit the 8 of spades when I get back in with the J. Could partner actually have minor tricks? He's shown up with 7 of his max 9 points. But both minor suit Qs are outstanding. And I guess the actual concern is if declarer has 2 more diamonds back he might have an entry to board. Ok, that's reason enough I think. I'm going to play spades.

J-7 of clubs-T-2. Partner has my back in spades. Oh well. I play another. 8-7 of diamonds-2 of hearts-9. Declarer then plays a diamond to board as it turns out partner only had 2 diamonds as well. Guess it could be a good thing I didn't set up those hearts after all? Declarer doesn't run out a heart and instead plays a club to partner's Q. Declarer is then up. Down 2, doubled.

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

The other 7 tables all played contracts from my side, and they all went down. 3NT went down 3, 4 hearts went down 2 4 times, and down 3 twice, with one of those being doubled. Stopping in 3 hearts would have been a top board assuming I didn't butcher the play, having them overcall locked it in. 14 MPs to the good!


Jack disagrees with my 3 heart bid. He thinks my hand is good enough for game. I think he's crazy. We have at most 23 points between the two of us and a 9 card fit isn't enough to bump that up to game. Especially when we could easily have only 20 points! He then disagrees with my double. After the enemies offer to give us a top board (in retrospect if I don't lead a spade I have 4 trump tricks guaranteed so I just need 1 trick anywhere else from partner or my heart A) he wants me to bid 4 hearts. He then doesn't want me to draw trump on the opening lead, which I can agree with, but he wants me to try to cash the A of heart which feels sketchy to me. I think leading a minor and daring them to draw trump probably makes sense. It's unlikely they can pitch a stuff heart on a minor trick since I'm short in both of them. He then doesn't like my diamond switch. Well, he likes it, but he wants me to play the T instead of the 2. I think I like keeping the T to force the A on the second round if I need to. He then disagrees with my club signal when partner cashes the A. I played 5 from 54 and he wants me to play 4 to discourage. I wanted to encourage, actually, since I have a doubleton. Oh well. Finally, he disagrees with my play near the end to cash the J of spades. He wants me to give up and cash the A of hearts. Considering declarer does have an entry to board I'm pretty sure this costs us a club trick. It does gain us back the spade trick though, since partner had the T, so it turns out to be a wash but I think the EV is bad.

Ranking after board 25/60: 8/16 with 52%