Recap Of 2/3/2016 28 Board IMP Individual

Well, when you are down 36 IMPs after the first 4 boards, it will be a long day.  And it got worse.  I’m leaving tomorrow at 5:30 am, so this blog report will be quick.  These first 3 boards reported  below accounted for 37 IMPs, but since we won an IMP on the other board, my team was ‘only’ down 36 IMPs after 4.

Board 1

Not everyone will judge to overcall with the East (my) hand (at the other table, North didn’t even open, so there was no issue about an overcall or a bid with the East hand at the other table).  With my 1♥ overcall, my partner was happy to advance to 4♥, whereas at the other table, West overcalled 1♥, and my hand (their partner) bounced to 4♥.  Sounds like a push, but then things diverged, -300, -500, lose 13 IMPs.  It’s a bidders game, but here my team bid too much and paid with speeding tickets.

Board 3

Here the issue was how high to overcall:  a simple 2♣ or a jump to 3♣?  Vul vs. not, I was content with bidding only 2♣, but my counterpart at the other table tried 3♣ which became much more successful.  At my table, North was interested in a diamond slam, but settled for game in hearts.  As you can see, our teammates didn’t handle the preemption well.  I led my singleton diamond in hopes of a later ruff, but partner had no entry and declarer had no trouble scoring 11 tricks, pitching their spade loser on a top club.  Likewise, declarer, in 3♣, had no trouble with 9 tricks, losing 1 trick in each suit.  -450 and -670, lose 15 IMPs.

Board 4

About half of us that play in this game are adding a point for a 5 card suit when performing hand evaluation.   Playing 20-21 HCP for opening 2NT, 19 HCP plus a 5 card suit adds up to 20 the way we count them.  Others are looking at High Card Points, and seeing 19, open a suit.  Here, arriving in 3NT worked well when a) ♦A was onside, and b) declarer correctly guessed that the ♠A was offside, but only 3 long, so he kept ducking spades.  So, when my partner switched to the ♠Q after winning the ♦A, we cashed our 3 spades, but then the rest of the tricks belonged to declarer.  0+3+4+2 for 9 tricks and 600.  Declarer at the other table, with our cards, managed 5 tricks in 1NT for -200, lose 9 IMPs.

Board 16

I really hate to report this hand.  Embarrassing.  The opening lead was the ♣K (in case of catching a singleton ♣Q, even if that singleton is with partner, partner could not continue clubs if you started with a small club instead of the ♣K – yes, a small heart lead at trick 1 would have been more effective).  I ducked the ♣K and won the club continuation.  I did not like the blockage in diamonds, but I needed to give the diamond suit more thought.  But, seeing the blockage and seeing a ‘solution’, I led the ♦J at trick 3.  Curtains.  Now RHO must win a diamond trick, clear clubs, and when the opening leader wins the ♠A, they have me set.

Bruce (declarer at the other table) told me that he also noticed the diamond blockage and considered leading the ♦J.  But, in the end, he played right, leading a small diamond, allowing him to pick up the whole diamond suit, and when the ♠A was onside, he arrived at 10 tricks 2+1+5+2.  -100 and -630, lose 12 IMPs.  The reason the ♦J is the wrong way to start this suit is shown on this hand.  Assuming RHO, who did not preempt, has long diamonds, you always have 5 diamond tricks with a spade entry for the repeat finesse and a heart entry to reach the 13th diamond.  The diamond blockage created an illusion (there is no issue, but it seemed like an issue) that cost big time.

That is the end of the big swing hands for today.  But, since I have time, I’ll report one more (at Bruce’s request) to see if you can do better than the players at the table.  We had the same bidding, same play, push board, no swing, but there could have been…a big one.

Board 19

5♣ is a very wide ranging bid, anywhere from a stab in the dark that hopes to not get doubled and not go down too many, to a hand that is almost worth a 6♣ bid.  Here, since only 11 tricks were required, both declarers saw a potential danger in entering dummy with a heart for a club finesse that might lose to a singleton ♣K, followed by a heart ruff to go down 1 in a cold vulnerable game.  So, both played the ♣A and then played hearts, finding them splitting favorably for 11 tricks, losing the opening spade lead and the ♣K.  But, lets go back to the bidding.  On this lie of the cards on this hand, there are 10 tricks in spades, so even 7♠X -3 is ‘only’ -500 against the vulnerable opponents game/slam.  So, should South, who started the preempt, or North, who raised to game, find the 5♠ bid to save over 5♣?  That would be a very cheap save of -100 against -600 for 5♣ making.

But, if they do bid 5♠, should East now bid 6♣?  Or should West bid 6♣?  By simply entering dummy in hearts to take the club finesse, 6♣ is cold, +1370!  Now it is REALLY important, if you decided to save in 5♠, and ended up pushing them into the cold slam, to continue saving and bid 6♠.  It will be very cheap insurance (-300) on this hand, and very costly if you do not.

High level (5 level, 6 level, even 7 level) decisions are notoriously difficult and that is what often differentiates the top players from the rest of us.  But, as already noted, nothing happened on this hand, from a scoring standpoint, when both tables followed the same path in both bidding and play.