Recap Of 2/2/2015 28 Board IMP Individual

While there were several hands of interest (including a vulnerable 4♠ made at both tables which seemed like it might be beaten), I’m just going with the 3 double digit swings.  Bidding was almost the exclusive cause of the 3 swings, but leads, defense and declarer play presented some opportunities to avoid the adverse swing.

What to do in 1st chair with the West hand?  Here, the miserable spots, not to mention the side 4 card major suggested to Dan (as West, dealer) to not open, but Mark, at the other table, did open 2♥ as dealer.

So, at my table, given the chance, East would likely have opened 1NT, but since I opened 1NT in front of him, he passed at his first opportunity.  Once Dan balanced over my 1NT, Manfred, as East, carried on to the heart game, which was one level too high.  The limit was 9 tricks for West in a heart contract, so partner and I scored +50 vs. the 4♥ contract.

At the other table, after the 2♥ opening, North made a normal 2NT overcall, and East decided that a penalty double was in order.  As you can see from the layout, even though EW have the majority of the HCP (21 vs. 19), they have no tricks!  Declarer can easily score 0+1+2+5 and at some point, a diamond or spade endplay scores the odd extra trick.  I don’t know how the defense or declarer play went, but double dummy best defense results in 9 tricks for NS and, in practice, 9 tricks were made for a strange route to -590 (of course normal 590s come from making a non-vulnerable doubled major suit game).   Lose 11 IMPs with our +50 compared to our teammates -590 when the uptrick was scored in 2NTX.

Should West pull the double to 3♥?  I wouldn’t think so, but bidding (instead of sitting for the double) would have been quite a success here.  Had he bid 3♥, win 5 vs. lose 11.

Two pretty normal auctions, where Bill decided, with the weak heart suit, to try for the 9 trick game where Ed dutifully transferred, and was corrected to 4♥ after he bid 3NT over partner’s acceptance of the transfer.

When North (Manfred) found the diamond lead vs. 3NT, the defense had 5 tricks established immediately.  Declarer could manage 8, but no way to get 9.

If I found the same diamond lead vs. 4♥, there would be no story to tell.  Or, if I shifted to diamonds after winning the ♥Q, we push the board.  Instead, I led ‘from nothing’ with the 3rd best club, and when a later got in with the ♥Q, I decided to hope partner had a singleton club and some small trumps that he needed to score, so I fatally continued clubs.  I thought Lead Captain would call for a club lead and I was ‘right’ sort of – the ♣6 ranked best of all leads on 5000 deals, but it was very nearly a 13-way tie.  That is, all leads scored nearly the same in terms of % of times the contract is defeated.  The lead seems rather random to me.  Should I have worked out the diamond shift?  It didn’t seem necessary, and a club ruff (if available) did seem necessary – if declarer held ♥KJx to go with 5 clubs, after knocking out the ♥A, he can get to dummy and draw trump, scoring 1+3+1+5.  Of course, declarer, in that scenario, cannot hold both the ♦K and ♠K.  So, if I pick the right pointed suit to lead, we might beat this hand without the ruff.  Of course, in reality, not only did partner not hold an initial singleton club (thererfore he was unable to ruff my club continuation), he held 2 natural trump tricks and had no interest in ruffing.  All he wanted was for me to lead a diamond through so he could score his ♦K.  But, as declarer ran his tricks, eventually Dan was endplayed out of his ♦K, so all we scored were our 3 trump tricks, -420 and -50, lose 10 IMPs for our team.

Is this a guess or should I work this out?

For our last hand, once again the third and last double digit swing happened on a ‘none vulnerable’ hand.  I’m well known for ‘never’ wanting to show 4th hand 3 green cards.  So, when 2 passes, came my way, it seemed necessary to make come call.  With such short spades, I decided to cram the auction with a 3rd seat 2♥ opening.  This caught Bill (East) with a hand that he thought might be too strong to simply overcall.  The opening bid created an effective opening lead for partner.  And it left Bill fearful of a 2nd round heart ruff by his LHO, should he pursue heart ruffs in dummy.  Scoring heart ruffs in dummy still seems like the best play.  You could possibly still just lose 2 spades and a diamond, even if they score ruff of a high heart on the 2nd round.  

The other table had no opening bid to contend with, so they had a club lead instead of a heart lead against their 4♠ contract.  Declarer then led diamonds to get to dummy, finessed hearts, ruffed a heart and pitched a heart on the ♣K (after cashing the ♣A), so he just lost the ♦A and 2 trump tricks, but scored the game.

At our table, after the ♥9 lead, the ‘power’ of my ♥765 came into play.  Declarer decided to hope I held ♠Jx and, so after winning the heart at trick 1, led ♠A then ♠Q.  Partner won the ♠K, played the ♠J (so dummy no longer has trumps), then cleared the heart suit.  Since I still held the ♦A, upon winning, I had 2 hearts to cash for -2, +100 to go with +420, win 11 IMPs.

I can’t claim 2♥ was a good 3rd seat opening bid, but on this hand, it was effective as both a lead director and creating uncertainty for declarer in the play of the hand.