Bridge Match 3 - Board 27

Board 27 - Dealer South - None Vul

Opponents convention card: Majeure cinquième
Opponents playing strength: Advanced

My hand: ♠ Q J 8 6 ♥ T 3 ♦ Q 3 2 ♣ J 7 6 3

West opens 1 diamond in second seat and partner bids 2 diamonds, Michaels. Well, I sure have a 4 card major and not a lot of points... Is a jump bid here stronger or weaker than a regular bid? I'd think it should be weaker, with 3 diamonds as the way to show a good hand? I for one am a law abiding citizen so I like 3 spades here. Let's find out if Jack does too... West bids 4 diamonds over my 3 spades and partner goes right to 4 spades which gets passed out.

West leads the A of diamonds.

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

West	North	East	South
			Pass
1♦	2♦1	Pass	3♠
4♦	4♠	Pass	Pass
Pass
1Michaels

Wow, partner's hand is not very good. With 2 diamonds I really don't think he should be the one pulling from 4 diamonds to 4 spades. Oh well. I have a heart loser, a club loser, a spade loser, and two diamond losers. I need to get rid of two of those. Picking up the K of spades in West is one way to get rid of one, and I guess the other is to finesse him for the K of hearts too. But first let's see how many tricks they take off the top... A-4-6-3. 5-8-J-Q. Uh... What? I mean, thanks! Time to draw trump. Q-K-A-3. T-9 of clubs-6-7. 2-4 of clubs-J-9.

Oh, right... Those hearts aren't actually tricks. Maybe I was suppose to ruff them out? Oh well. Too late now! Let's just play them and hope for a 3-3 split I guess. T-4-Q-8. A-7-3-K. Ok, hearts are 4-2. This means I only have 9 tricks. Actually, I can get a 10th in hearts after losing a heart and ruffing a heart. And it doesn't matter what order I do that in, so I might as well ruff the first one in case West is being tricky. He isn't, but I still have 10 tricks so I make 4.

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

There are 8 different results for this board. In addition to our 4 spades making there was a 4 spades down 3. The rest of the contracts were played by EW, with 5 diamonds down 3, 5 diamonds making, 5 diamonds making up 1, 4 diamonds making, 4 diamonds down 1, and 3NT up 1. That's a lot of different diamond results! All of which are worse than 4 spades making, so we get 14 MPs here. But only because West gifted us the diamond trick. Though if we hold it to down 1 we still get 10 MPs, so I guess my 3 spade bid worked out for the best?


Jack disagrees with my 3 spade bid because he thinks it's a limit raise. He wants me to bid 2 spades. This is twice now that the opponents have opened and we end up trying to find constructive ways to get to game. That's not how bridge should work. If the opponents open it's exceedingly unlikely we have a game so we should be trying to find the right partscore or the right level of interference to get them to a bad spot. I really think 3 spades should be weaker than 2 spades on this auction. Jack also disagrees with my play of the hand. He wants me to play on hearts before drawing trump, and when I do play on hearts he wants me to float the T instead of finessing the Q. I think I'm fine with both my plays here.

Ranking after board 27/60: 6/16 with 53.44%