Bridge Match 3 - Board 39

Board 39 - Dealer South - All Vul

Opponents convention card: Majeure Cinquième
Opponents playing strength: Good

My hand: ♠ J T 2 ♥ Q T 9 8 4 ♦ Q 7 ♣ K 5 2

I get to kick things off with a pass. West bids 1 spade which then gets passed around to me. My team is likely to have more points, but only by a little, and we don't know if we have a fit or not. We don't know if they do either. So leaving them in 1 spade might be the optimal thing to do, especially red on red. I kinda want to double here to give partner the option of converting to penalty if he has 4 or 5 spades but I doubt Jack has that ability and I worry we'll end up playing 4 diamonds in a 3-2 fit or something silly like that. But I want to bid! I feel like 2 hearts should show more hearts than this... Eh, double is probably right with a real partner so I'll give Jack the benefit of the doubt. I double, West bids 2 diamonds, and everyone passes to me again. Ok, well, we got them up a level and into West's second suit. Take it away!

Partner leads the 2 of diamonds.

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

West	North	East	South
			Pass
1♠	Pass	Pass	Double
2♦	Pass	Pass	Pass

Well, looks like partner has 4 spades. And we're drawing trump so he can score them without just having them ruffed. I like it. 2-3-Q-K. Declarer also wants to draw trump. T-5-6-7. Then he switches to spades. K-3-9-2. 4-5-A of diamonds-T. And now a low club off of dummy. 3-2-T-J. Partner decides clubs is as good a suit as any to play. Q-4-5-A. Partner and declarer are now both out of clubs. Partner played low on the first spade trick so he should have an odd number of spades. This means declarer has 6 spades and partner has 3. Declarer is probably 6-1-5-1.

Anyway, declarer now draws some more trump. I have some low hearts to spare! J-4-6 of clubs-4 of hearts. If declarer was 6-1-5-1 he has all the remaining spades and diamonds after he plays the A of spades, which he does. But then he plays a low spade to partner's Q. I guess partner had 4 spades after all. I pitch my extraneous K of clubs and have no more decisions to make. All my hearts are equal since I can cover dummy's J with my Q.

Partner cashes a couple of tricks and then declarer is up. I suspect he had a play to get an extra trick by not cashing his A of hearts. Oh well. They make 3.

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

Two West's went down 1 in 3 diamonds. Two West's made 3 diamonds. A West made 2 spades up 1. One West made 1 spade doubled just in. And one North went down 1 in 2 hearts. Pushing them out of spades into diamonds was therefore with 3 MPs! Unfortunately that means we only get 6 MPs on the hand. And if we could have held them to 2 diamonds? That would have been 10 MPs. *sigh*


Jack disagrees with my double because it's supposed to be for takeout. He wants me to bid 2 hearts instead. I feel like that's probably a disaster too often to be a good play. And I can pull to hearts after I double if partner bids a minor. This only really works because I'm already a passed hand. But it does work. And the double isn't really takeout anyway. I replayed the hand and partner couldn't have stopped the heart trick at the end because he was nicely endplayed by declarer. And there was never a time when he could have played differently I don't think.

Ranking after board 39/60: 7/16 with 52.26%