Close calls

Last time Ted and I played I was a bit erratic. I had to apologise to him afterwards for some of my less successful calls. In my defence the matches start a bit too early for me as I'm still trying to get settled. I normally end up praying to be dummy at the start - this time I was declarer for the first four in a row!

I was unlucky in getting a lot of close calls wrong. That or I have quite poor judgment. The problem is, sometimes I decide to be conservative and end up missing out on a game, slam or juicy double, and somtimes I decide to be bold and overbid or double a makeable contract.

In the hand below my judgment was off by two tricks:

Ted opened 1♣ and I replied 1♥. When the next hand bid 4♠ Ted was under pressure and went for 5♣. I guessed that at that vulnerability he was bidding to make, and I have a great hand (apart from the two small Spades), so topped him up to 6♣. Two down.

But I was not subdued:

When Ted showed 16+ with good Clubs I chanced my arm with 3NT. The ♣K is a great card but we are still a bit light, and it was lucky that Ted had enough Aces to get me up to nine tricks (and that they didn't lead Diamonds). This time I was indisciplined but it paid off.

As tends to be the way with wild bidding we lost more than we gained and overall lost the match by 25 IMPs.