Last night I played in the Buchanan Pairs tournament with John Di Mambro. It was an 1830 start, and the way things worked out, I was still surrounded by children for the first board. Does that excuse my defense?
I was moderately wise not to bid in the auction, and lead a Spade against 4♥. Declarer at our table lead a Heart to the Ace, then on seeing my ♥J crossed back to dummy and gussed well to duck a Heart to my ♥K. Every other declarer in 4♥ finessed the ♥Q and had to lose two trump tricks. We could still have taken two trump tricks, if I'd lead back a Spade for John to ruff. I knew that the last Spade was the Ace and declarer had it, so it was all there for me. I did ponder for a while, but then played a useless Diamond. Conceding 4♥+2 was worth 0%.
After the first ten boards we had recovered to be on about 50%. Then we had a good run towards the end, and finished on 64%, to finish second overall. My highlight was the board below:
I made a pretty poor 2♥ opening (not sure if my partner would approve or not), then accepted defending 3NT. John dutifully lead a Heart, which I ducked, as taking the trick would just set up two tricks for declarer. When he finessed Clubs it was an easy one to duck, as he is certainly going to be finessing again. When he did finesse again I lead a Diamond, setting up my fourth Diamond. I was then able to get a Club, Heart and Diamond and hold declarer to 3NT+1, where he should always be getting 11 tricks.
My fine effort was worth 40%, as the opposition had done well to get to 3NT, and 4♠ was failing badly.
