Sunday, January 18, 2015

Bridge Match 3 - Board 50

Board 50 - Dealer East - NS Vul

Opponents convention card: Majeure cinquième
Opponents playing strength: Advanced

My hand: K 8 7 3 2 A Q 7 6 A 5 8 4

I open 1 spade in 2nd seat. Partner responds 2 diamonds. I bid 2 hearts. He jumps to 4.

West leads the T of spades.
NORTH
Q
K J 4
K Q J T 8 4 3
J 9
WEST
T
SOUTH
K 8 7 3 2
A Q 7 6
A 5
8 4
WestNorthEastSouth
Pass1
Pass2Pass21
Pass4PassPass
Pass
1Forcing

Well, that sure was an interesting bid on partner's part... Why are we playing in our likely 7 card fit when he has a 7 card suit of his own? On the plus side I have 3 obvious losers in the black suits and 11 obvious winners in the red suits. Unless hearts split 5-1 or worse. So there's not a whole lot to say here... They'll take as many black tricks as they wants and then we win.

West puts me to as much of a test as he can. They take the opening spade trick, then 2 clubs, then lead another club. If East had only 2 clubs and West has 4 hearts they could be setting up a trump trick here. Do I have any play to stop it? Ruffing high on board loses a trick to any 4-2 split. Ruffing in hand loses a trick to any 4-2 split. So I need to ruff low and hope East has a club, or East has 3+ hearts.

He had a club. But I'm not yet out of the woods. I don't have a way to draw trump exclusively here. My only play is to draw two rounds from board and then play a diamond to my hand to draw two more rounds. This loses big when one of them has a diamond void but I don't see any way around it. No one has a diamond void. They made me think a lot more than I thought I'd need to, but it was all for naught. Making 4.
NORTH
Q
K J 4
K Q J T 8 4 3
J 9
WEST
T 5
9 5 2
9 7 2
A Q 7 6 2
EAST
A J 9 6 4
T 8 3
6
K T 5 3
SOUTH
K 8 7 3 2
A Q 7 6
A 5
8 4
4 hearts is a solo top board. 2 tables made 5 diamonds. 1 table went down 1 in 5 diamonds. And 4 tables went down 2 in 3NT. This means picking hearts, strange as it seemed at the time, meant we got 14 MPs instead of 12 if we'd played 5 diamonds or 4 if we'd played 3NT. Good job partner! We're down so taking volatile risks like this makes a ton of sense.


Jack agrees with me all the way!

Ranking after board 50/60: 9/16 with 50.14%

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