Finding the Queen

John Di Mambro and I played in the SBU pairs last night. It felt like there were a lot of low level contracts, most of which I was playing, most of which I could have got one more trick.

After they bid 1♦-2♦ John steps in with a double. This is matchpoints so you have to compete, and even if he passes I would still have bid 2♠. As it is, opposite his double I'm pretty confident of making 2♠. When trumps are 3-1 I'm down to eight tricks, nine if I can guess the Heart Queen. Who has it? I really thought about this, then got it wrong.

I know that North has about 12 points (they played a strong NT), and South about 6. From the play in the Diamond suit South has the King, meaning he must have one more honour somewhere. Could it be the clubs;K? After I take my ♣A I lead a Club up from dummy to find out. South ducked this, so I decided they couldn't have the King. Hence I presumed they had the ♥Q, and finessed the wrong way. 2♠= scored 22%, making 2♠+1 would still only have been 39%, as most East-Wests were scoring 200+ from defending when North opened a weak NT.

Could I have guessed better? Later in the play South threw a Heart, which is not likely from someone who has ♥Qxx. Maybe that's the clue I should have been looking for.

By contrast, here's one I played well:

My redouble shows 9+ without good support, and the 2NT is natural and aggressive. John had no problem raising to 3NT with his good suit. I'm expecting to need the Diamonds to make it, but then realise I've four top losers already. So if I play on Diamonds, and they don't split, I'll have five losers. If I can get six tricks outside of Diamonds I can make the contract safely. This turns out to be the case, as my Hearts and Spades get established, and I then play on Clubs instead.

Making 3NT is worth 67%, but this is mostly for bidding it. It would have been a better score (comparatively) if the Diamonds didn't split.

Overall we scored 51% to finish just above half way.