SBU Matchpoint Tournament

This Tuesday I convinced Ted to play in the Scottish Bridge Union (SBU) tournament. It's matchpoints which he says he doesn't like, but I thought it would suit us. Our cardplay and defence is relatively good, with our main weakness sometimes going for massive penalties.

Over the 24 boards we did nothing clever, but made few mistakes, and finished comfortably top in a large field. We had rather a charmed existence and there were only three boards where we scored below 50%. Once was when the opponents had a misunderstanding and underbid to 3♥ which just made, once was when the opponents bid and made the obvous 1NT and we got 40% (most matchpoints events you suffer loads of these), and once when I made the blunder below:

East opened 1♣ and I made a rather dubious 1♥ overcall. West had just enough to overcall 1♠ (showing five or more) and East optimistimcally raised straight to game. It's optimistic as the hand is good but the ♥K might be useless.

The problem with my 1♥ overcall now became clear to me, as Ted lead the ♥Q. Normally this would promise ♥QJ (or maybe a singleton), but once I've bid Hearts he might just be leading them for that reason. The ♥Q was covered by the ♥K and ♥A and I had the crucial decision. I didn't realise it was the crucial decision though and just played a heart back straight away. We've now lost the chance for a Diamond ruff, and when Declarer lead Spades from hand picking up the ♠A the hand was over.

If I played a Diamond back I would get a ruff when Ted took his ♠A. It would be obvious for him to give me a ruff as leading a Diamond is an odd thing to do with ♦AKTx on the table. There is some danger though that leading a Diamond will let declarer draw trumps and discard a losing Heart (if he started with say ♦Qx in hand), but I think if I'd have thought about it I might have got it right.