Sunday, June 01, 2014

Bridge Match 2 - Board 57

Board 57 - Dealer North - EW Vul

Opponents convention card: Dutch Acol
Opponents playing strength: Intermediate

My hand: J 9 5 2 J 7 6 K Q 9 T 8 2

Partner opens 1 diamond in first chair. East passes. My hand is pretty bad, but I do have 7 points and a 4 card major so I have to bid a spade. West passes and partner bids 1NT, strong. Even opposite a strong NT opener my hand isn't very good. It isn't worth even an invite, so I pass.

East leads the 9 of hearts.
NORTH
K T
K 8 3
A 8 5 4 3
K Q 5
EAST
9
SOUTH
J 9 5 2
J 7 6
K Q 9
T 8 2
WestNorthEastSouth
1Pass1
Pass1NTPassPass
Pass

I have 3 diamonds off the top and that is it. I can almost certainly get a 4th diamond and might even get a 5th. I can brute force a club and might get a second one. I can eventually set up 2 spades after losing 2 tricks. And I have a heart for sure off the opening lead. As far as losers go I have stoppers all over the place but only one heart stopper. But the weird 9 of hearts lead makes me think they're probably split 4-3. So I probably only have 3 heart losers, a club, 2 spades, and a diamond. I need to find a way to not lose one of those.

Anyway, I think I need to cover the lead. 9-J-2-3. Well, that was unexpected. Now ideally I want to lose a trick to East if at all so I can't be finessed in hearts. But since I'm mostly losing aces I don't have much choice in the matter. I want to start by setting up spades and I can try finessing the Q into East. 2-4-T-8. Well, that makes setting up spades harder, actually. But I got a trick out of it, so that's fine. Let's see what's up in diamonds. 3-6-K-2. Good stuff. I have a 4th diamond for sure, but I might have to lose a diamond to get it. I do think it's time to establish a club trick. 2-3-Q-A. East fires back a club. 7-8-9-K.

Urg, I feel like I've probably played this badly and am mostly just setting up tricks for the opponents. Well. I get to make if diamonds are 3-2, so let's see if that's going to happen. 4-J-Q-7. Hurray! I cash out and they are up. Making 2.
NORTH
K T
K 8 3
A 8 5 4 3
K Q 5
WEST
A Q 4
5 4 2
T 7 2
J 9 6 3
EAST
8 7 6 3
A Q T 9
J 6
A 7 4
SOUTH
J 9 5 2
J 7 6
K Q 9
T 8 2
Everyone was in 1NT. Someone made 3, 3 of us made 2, someone made 1, and 3 people went down 1. So we score up 10 more MPs. Woo!


Jack disagrees with my spade play. He wants to investigate diamonds first, which probably makes more sense. Even if they split badly you can force someone to make some pitches and maybe pull off an accidental squeeze of some kind. He then later disagrees with my playing a club. He still wants me to play diamonds, and he's still probably right. Oops.

Ranking after board 57/60: 1/16 with 63.16%

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