Slam fail

Sometimes it's easier when you don't get the big hands. Last night five of us played one of the instant matchpoint games from Richard Pavlicek's web site. It's a fun social format. Each of you makes six boards, then each possible pairing plays two of the six boards you made while you kibitz.

I held this monster in 2nd seat at all red:
S AQJ
H AJ3
D A
C AQJ942

First hand passed, so my first debate is what to open. I don't like opening minor-oriented hands 2C, and I'm unwilling to distort this and call it balanced, so I went with 1C. Partner responded 1H, and I'm stuck with 2S. No club bid is forcing, and I really want to hear about a fifth heart. Unfortunately partner raised to 3S.

Now what? Generally after faking a reverse or jump shift, retreating to your first bid suit makes clear you actually had a one-suiter. But that's much more common when the opening is in a major and the jump shift is in the minor. Nevertherless, I don't see a better option than 4C.

Unfortunately at this point my partner thought I was cuebidding for spades, and cooperated with 4D which got doubled. I jumped to 5NT (pick-a-slam). I'm not sure about this one either. I didn't want to give up on 6H at matchpoints, but not unsurprisingly partner thought the choice was between black suits. I corrected 6S to 6NT which the sneaking suspicion that I might as well bid 7 since I was either making with an overtrick or going down a lot depending on a black suit finesse.

Down 4 didn't score well, and of course 6C was cold opposite partner's actual hand, 10985 K962 7 K875.

Not good enough

I have a new high score in the category "out of first place by more than a board". Last night in an 8 table club game we finished at 68.90%. But the winners (also sitting our direction) had over 73%. Still it's hard to complain given my previous two efforts at the club. I thought we bid this hand nicely:

S AJ9732	KQ8
H KQ74	A6532
D void	KJ10
C A98	65

1S - 2H;
3H - 3S;
5D - 6C;
7H - P

After finding out about the double fit, partner launched into exclusion RKC. I showed two with the queen. (We don't have any special agreements about double fits, so this was just for spades.) She then placed the contract in the correct fit. 7H is cold (trump not 4-0) since you have six spades, five hearts, one club, and one diamond ruff. But you only make 6S since you're ruffing diamonds with the short trump instead of the long ones. Surprisingly we were the only pair in hearts, although some people made all the tricks in spades on a diamond lead.

Interestingly, you don't "need" the diamond honors to make the grand in hearts. But if you don't have them, it's very hard to discover everything in time because you don't get to start with a two-over-one bid. If you change the hand to three small diamonds, can you get there after 1S - 1NT - 2H?

Do I really have to?

Occasionally sessions are so bad that I don't really want to write about any of the hands, but after two in a row like that, I suppose I can't stay in denial forever.

I held this hand:
S 53
H KJ854
D 10754
C 75

The opponents (mostly) had the following auction, putting me on lead:
(P) 1C (1S) 2S;
(P) 3S (P) 3NT;
AP

So, what would you try?

Partner bid spades, but then neglected to double 3S, so spades don't seem particularly attractive from 3 small. (Best case is probably that partner can set up the suit after knocking out two stoppers.) A heart doesn't need much to be safe, just the queen (and possibly just the 10 if AQ is behind me), and seems to offer the best chance of a set, so that's what I went with. It's also possible a club is right, since it's matchpoints, and that's highly unlikely to blow a trick in their known fit.

Dummy tracked with A762 of hearts, and partner won the queen. On the return of partner's 9 and declarer's 10, I played the jack, ducked again by declarer. Eventually we also scored the diamond ace, but partner was out of hearts, so that was it. Declarer could have made another overtrick by playing hearts to be 5-2, but he can't tell whether partner returned the heart from 9 or 94.

In most of my partnerships, but not this one, partner's pass over 3S would actually have suggested leading them. In general you're going to want to lead partner's overcalled suit, so doubling to say "lead my suit" just gives them more room in the auction (including possibly an XX to put partner back on lead). So with known length, we double to say "don't lead my suit", only giving the opponents more room in the less common case.

Slamming

Matchpoints again, vulnerable against not, partner held this in third seat:
S void
H QJ9632
D 1043
C Q742

I opened a diamond, left hand opponent passed, and it's her call. What would you bid? You have 2H available as weak.

My partner bid 1H which I like. I think the hand is too good in support of both minors to block them out prematurely. The auction continued quite vigorously:

1D (P) 1H (1S);
3C (3H*) P (4S); *no one asked what this was
5C (5S) ?

Now what? (Feel free to comment on the second round pass too.)

Partner should have at most 3 major suit cards, and that many only if the minors are solid or close to it. It wouldn't be too surprising given your spade void if partner is short in hearts, although certainly the opponents *could* have 12 or 13 spades. It's possible if 6C is down that 5S was making and down 1 is a profitable sacrifice even at these colors. So my partner bid 6C, which I thought was a good bid.

This put fourth seat on the spot with this hand:
S AK10743
H A5
D 9862
C 6

And, unluckily, he believed our bidding and took a sacrifice holding three quick tricks! Which turned out to be correct since I held solid clubs (but for partner's queen) and diamonds and only one heart. +100 was below average although it did beat the -850 from the pair that doubled the making 5S. But worst of all, my diamonds were actually AKQJ7, so if he'd doubled instead, I'd have won two beers (or four, I suppose, depending on how greedy I was).

The Rabbi

I actually played most of last weekend in a local sectional, but playing two sessions, going out with friends after, sleeping in, and repeating wasn't exactly conducive to writing. I'll try to drop in one or two, but I'm certainly not going to manage a hand from all six sessions.

I held this hand in second seat at matchpoints with everyone vulnerable:
S AQ742
H 32
D A964
C J10

Would you open? And playing 12-14 no trumps, is it 1S or 1NT?

Seems like a 1S bid to me. I have an easy rebid over anything but 2H and even then we play that 2S doesn't show extra length. Next hand overcalled 2H, partner made a limit raise with 3H, and I rejected it with 3S. This passed out, so I'm in 3S on the DK lead with this dummy:
S 985
H K4
D J2
C AK964

This is might be too good, as I think 10 tricks are possible and some pairs might be there. Nevertheless, how to play the hand?

On the lead, and the bidding, I am likely to have only one heart loser, and two diamond winners. If diamonds aren't 3-3, it would be nice to ruff one, but that only works if the long diamonds are with long spades. Alternately I have a possible club finesse for a pitch.

What about trump?

I have to lose one even if the finesse works, and it's possible I should be playing for Kx offside because of the overcall, but it's definitely right to play ace first to see what happens as I can always lead to the queen later if I think it's right. At that point my left hand opponent, one of the best players in the room, gives me a dirty look and follows face down. After dropping his stiff king, I have only one trump loser where a spade to the queen would have given me two. It turns out diamonds are 3-3, so I make ten tricks.

A different session at the sectional had the most amusing final result I'd seen. There was an 18 team board-a-match, and 4 of the teams (including mine) finished tied for first. So 16 of the 72 entrants were winners! There was another 4-way tie half a board behind.

How low can you go?

One of the things I've noticed about my bidding is that I'm more solid than most of my peers when it comes to 2-level overcalls. One of the most annoying overcalls to deal with is 2C over 1D because it's hard to sort out major suit fits. A common continuation is a negative double (only promising one major), and a club raise, and now a minimal opener with only one major doesn't know whether to compete. So I've been trying to be more aggressive in that specific auction.

I held this at matchpoints in fourth seat with two passes and a 1D opening to me:
S A53
H J104
D J7
C QJ983

I'd like to hear opinions on whether this is an appropriate overcall. I did at the table and we had this full auction:

(P) P (1D) 2C;
(X) P (2D) P;
(3NT) AP

And now we get a defensive problem. Partner led the SK, and this hand came down in dummy:
S 1062
H A
D AKQ63
C 10742

What do you play to trick 1?

I lazily played an encouraging spade (low for us), so partner would continue the suit and we could run it. Partner switched, and they wrapped it up. Originally I was annoyed, but I realized I should have done better. Although you don't normally unblock with Axx, I can tell it's safe to do so here. I know partner has at least KQJx because the 10 is in dummy (ruling out KQ10x) and she led the suit when I bid something else (ruling out a lead from shortness). Thus we have the first 4+ spade tricks as long as we cash them.

Partner actually holding KQJ74 switched at trick two thinking I had a stiff and the negative doubler had four. It's probably right from her side to continue anyway to be sure, but I shouldn't have given her a chance to go wrong.