Bridge Match 3 - Board 31

Board 31 - Dealer South - NS Vul

Opponents convention card: Dutch Doubleton
Opponents playing strength: Good

My hand: ♠ T 3 2 ♥ K 9 6 2 ♦ J T 9 6 ♣ Q 5

West opens 1 diamond in second seat. Partner doubles and East bids 1NT. My hand is not great, but with 7 cards in the majors I feel like I should bid something. I go with 2 hearts. Everyone passes.

West leads the K of spades.

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

West	North	East	South
			Pass
1♦	Double	1NT	2♥
Pass	Pass	Pass

We have half the points and an 8 card fit, so this should be a decent spot to be. I have a club loser, two diamond losers, two spade losers, and a heart loser. That's one loser too many. I might be able to avoid a diamond loser. And it's possible I can get a pitch in clubs to get rid of a spade loser if they don't cash out. My best hope of making that happen will be if the person with the ace of clubs only has 2 spades, so I think I want to hold up one round here. K-5-7-2. West shifts to a club. Sweet! T-3-A-5. East returns a spade. 9-T-Q-A. Communication here is a little awkward and I'm going to have to throw away a club trick to get my spade pitch in time, but that should be fine. I can ruff that club. So I cash my K of clubs dropping my own Q and then play the J to pitch a spade. West ruffs. So much for that plan. He throws back a spade, which I ruff.

I don't think there's even going to be an endplay or anything here. All they need to do is win their A of hearts and then wait for me to play diamonds. But then they don't take the A of hearts on the first trick. So now I can ruff the club high back to my hand and then draw trump. If they're split 1-1 at this point they'll be forced to lead a diamond or give me a ruff and sluff? Except I'll be out of trump in hand. And I risk being forced to lead away from the K of diamonds. So I can't ruff the club. I just draw trump, making sure to leave J5 opposite 9 so I can choose which hand to win the next trick in.

Hearts split with West winning the A. He then fires out a diamond, putting me to the test. I can float it to my J (winning when West underled the Q of diamonds) or I can hop with the K (winning when West underled the A of diamonds). East has shown up with 5 points so far and should have had 6-9 for his bid. West has shown up with 9 so far, and he opened. So they're each short points, meaning the diamonds should be split. Would West have opened an 11 count? Probably. So there's actually nothing to go on here. I just need to guess and hope. West led both spades and clubs during the hand, so I'm going to assert that he didn't lead diamonds because he thought I'd hop with the K and he has the A. So I hop now. The K holds, giving me 8 tricks. Making 2.

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

Two people somehow managed to make 3 hearts. Two more went down 1 in 3 hearts. The other 3 tables had the enemies play contracts where they made 1NT, went down 1 in 1NT, and made 2 clubs. This does mean we get 10 MPs on the hand.


Jack disagrees with my play near the end when I drew trump. He wants me to ruff a club. If he then draws trump he's down, so at that point he needs to play a diamond from hand and guess. Actually, that's the right play. Because if hearts don't break they can hop on this round, draw another round themselves, and then I'll be forced to lead away from the K of diamonds AND lose a club at the end. That's terrible. I set myself up for a false dichotomy. Ruffing the club and drawing trump was bad, so I didn't ruff a club. But I could have ruffed a club and then played a diamond.

Ranking after board 31/60: 4/16 with 55.3%