For the third week in a row I've been at the Buchanan with John Di Mambro. The first week I was too timid; the second week too bold; this week about right. "Not too many regrets", I said to John afterwards. Having said that, the board below was full of rue:
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I opened the West hand 1♦, North overcalled 1♥ and John bid a natural 2♣. South bid 2♥ and it was back to me. I was starting to like my hand a lot, with Kx in partner's suit and a Heart void. Rather than rebid my seven card Diamond suit I tried 2♠. John raised this to 4♠ and there I played. "Could be a Moysian fit" he warned as dummy came down, and indeed it was.
I got a trump lead from North. My plan was to play on Diamonds and hope trumps were 3-3, so I should have begun by ducking this Spade. But I didn't. Anyway with trumps 5-1 it was doomed, and while I didn't quite suffer the ignominy of having the defence draw my trumps I lost control and went three down. I think actually on this layout to make as many tricks as possible you need to ruff everything in hand, and eschew the Diamond finesse. But down one, two, or three is always going to be a bad score and so it turned out, as we collected 0% on the board.
If I bid a more normal 3♦ on the second round, or John doesn't raise Spades, it still seems likely we're going to end up in 3NT. This makes if they lead Spades (as happened on some tables) but on our table with the Heart overcall 3NT also fails. Well done to all the pairs who made it to 5♦ (eight tables out of twenty-five), making eleven or twelve tricks.
My other featured hand is the classic scenario when you've got a great hand but before you bid partner pre-empts:
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John opened the East hand with a Weak Two, in what must be a minimum for suit quality standards. I can see nine tricks (six Diamonds and three Clubs) so just need some sort of stopper in the other suits. When South overcalled 2♥ I bid 3♥ asking for a Heart stopper (I hope). John's King is actually enough, and he might have counted it, but perhaps wisely settled for 4♦. I'm now thinking if 5♦ will have play. It will if John has the ♠A, but I decide he's not likely to have that card and pass 4♦.
South went for a slight surprise Spade lead and hit the jackpot as the defence took the first four tricks. In 3NT they would take the first five tricks, also for one off. Our 4♦-1 is worth 48%. We beat those East-West pairs making a Heart contract but lost to those East-West pairs allowed to make extra tricks in Diamonds.
Despite those setbacks we scored well on other boards and finished on 66.4%.
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