Friday 9 November 2012

York dork

I played like a wild Viking tonight - very erratic. All four of the boards where we got 0% had me as declarer, but I think the 0% was mostly due to the bidding.

What do you make of this Unusual 2NT disaster? No one vulnerable.


♠ A J 2
♥ T 6 4
♦ A 7 3
♣ K 7 4 2
AnnaDanny
WNES
1♣2NT
x-3♣3♠
4♣4♠5♣-
-x-5♠
---
♠ K T 9 8 7 3
♥ 7
♦ K J T 8 5
♣ 5

East opens a club. I'm sitting South and come in with 2NT. We play that here as showing Diamonds and one of the majors, and either weak or strong. I've got 7 points so decide I've got the weak hand.

West asks what my bid shows, then doubles it. Anna now decides to pass, as she doesn't know my Major. I've got the weak hand type, and I'm worried if I bid again it'll look like I've got the strong hand type. But then they do say "6-5, come alive", so I stick my oar in with 3♠, West finds a 4♣ bid then I get some support from Anna with 4♠. I'm pretty happy with this contract, until East weighs in again with 5♣. Anna doubles this, and when it comes back round to me I get scared that she's just doubling because she thinks I've got the strong hand type. So I do something foolish and bid 5♠.

It's actually not a bad contract. There's a definite loser in Hearts and one in Clubs. To make it I need to find the ♦Q and ♦Q (you could call these the pointed suit Queens, but it still takes me some time to work out which the two pointed suits are). West leads a top Heart then another Heart, which I ruff. I play ♠K and another Spade, and the Queen pops up so that's Spades sorted.

Then I decide to ruff a Heart and play a Club trick myself, to find out more about the hand, but it doesn't help. On my third Heart East plays the Queen, so I wrongly deduce that East has more Diamonds (I've forgotten that East has loads of Clubs). So I wrongly finesse East for the Queen of Diamonds, and when that fails go down one.

Given her double of my 2NT, and the fact that she hadn't shown any points yet, I should probably have got it right and finessed West instead. Also I should have been a bit smarter and tried leading the ♦J first, worth a shot.

Here's the full deal:


No one vul
E deal
♠ A J 2
♥ T 6 4
♦ A 7 3
♣ K 7 4 2
♠ Q 6
♥ K J 9 5 3 2
♦ Q 9 6
♣ T 3
12
813
7
♠ 5 4
♥ A Q 8
♦ 4 2
♣ A Q J 9 8 6
♠ K T 9 8 7 3
♥ 7
♦ K J T 8 5
♣ 5

5♣x would have gone three down. Anna certainly had her double of 5♣, with four Clubs to the King and two Aces. She said afterwards that she knew I didn't have the strong version of 2NT as there would be too many points in the pack for that.

Most other tables played in 3♠ or 4♠ also making ten tricks.

Full deals from York Bridge Club here (where I am actually West not South as shown above).

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