An enjoyable night last night at the Buchanan with John Di Mambro. We finished 3rd with about 60%. We had a strong start then fell away a bit as I demonstrated a mixture of under and overbidding. Here's one where I was too shy:
 |
|
East opened with a maximum weak NT. I have the South hand with seven Spades. I can bid 2♦ showing a single-suited hand, which will be fine if I get to play 2♠, but I fear it will get us overboard if the auction becomes competitive, so select a meek pass. This works out poorly as declarer is able to win my opening Spade lead then rattle off five Heart tricks and finish with 1NT+1, getting us 34%. Playing and making 2♠ would have been 84%. In retrospect, my seventh Spade makes up for the weakness of the hand and it's worth an overcall.
In the second hand I was a defender, and made a bold defensive play, which looks foolish, and may well have been.
 |
|
I liked my East hand and opened 1♦. South overcalled 1♥ and I was all set to make a takeout double when North made an unassuming cue bid of 2♦. I decided to treat this like a Heart raise and still double for takeout. John was on the same wavelength, recognising my double as takeout, but of course had no bid, and the opposition soon got to 4♥.
John lead a Diamond to my Ace and I went into a think. It looks to me like South has got all the missing Hearts, and either has the Q♣ or can finesse it. So there's every chance she has 12 tricks now - five hearts, two Diamonds (the King and a ruff), and five Clubs. I could see any losing Spades going away on the Clubs in dummy, so cashed my ♠A, which felt totally wrong with the ♠AQ over the ♠KJ.
In a sense my analysis was correct. If I don't take my Ace of Spades at that point declarer can take 12 tricks. However, in a more practical sense it was not right at all as by letting 4♥ make we scored only 18% on the board. Most declarers made only nine tricks. It takes some working out to see how this is possible, but it can be done if you cash the ♣AK and ruff a Club low back to hand, or perhaps go for leading Spades up to dummy twice. The best line I think is for declarer to finesse Clubs immediately, as even if this fails you still have ten tricks (even though you expect the Club finesse to fail).
So a disappointing result but at least I erred by being too bold this time.
No comments:
Post a Comment