SOL3: Faben vs Goodman

I've been enjoying playing in the Scottish National League, against players who I normally just read about or watch on Vugraph. I think it's made me slightly nervous and prone to underbidding, which I'm trying not to do anymore. What I've found is that even good players make mistakes, not least in the claims of which I've seen several incorrect ones.

Another thing I've noticed is that results are more often duplicated. So if the cards lie badly, the game will go down on both tables and it's a flat board. This is different to playing in a fairly weak matchpoint event, where any sort of good score will beat most people.

I'm awaiting John's feedback (where he usually reveals at least one game I gave away), and so far am only aware of the two mistakes below. In both of these we got a good score, but it was duplicated at the other table. I should have pushed for a really good score.

I've got almost the perfect hand for a six-card Weak Two, with a solid suit third in hand and some shape. Plus a few surprise high cards which declarer will get wrong in the play. After the double John raised to 4♠ and West bid 5♦. With my ♦AJT9 I'm almost certain of we're beating this, but was afraid to double. It's just about possible the ♦KQ lie over me or I could be endplayed into only two trump tricks. Also, I thought, they could run to 5♥, but actually with my singleton Heart it's likely partner has a stack and 5♥ would get doubled too.

I quietly passed 5♦. Declarer of course got trumps wrong and with a Spade and Club trick too that was 5♦-4. Even if I double the best declarer can do is 5♦x-3, and 5♥ is at least as bad. On the other table North opened 1♠ and after West showed Diamonds East tried 3NT, which was also not a success. This was only three off though, for a 3 IMP gain for Team Faben. Could have been more though.

[Update: John reminded me that after making a Weak Two my double would not be penalties, rather a suggestion of bidding on but giving partner the option of passing. Here he would have bid 5S, which fails. I think I knew a Weak Two couldn't make a penalty double, but often when you are looking at a hand that wants to make a penalty double you can convince yourself double is penalties]

Defending 3NT I found the winning Heart lead (having got two opening leads wrong before). On the first trick Declarer played the King and Queen and John the Jack, so it should be pretty clear to me what's going on. When declarer lost a Club to my Ace I cleared the Hearts, and it's now clear this is going down a lot. But when I was allowed to win a Diamond I could have cashed my now high ♣J, then crossed to partner's winning Hearts. But even though I knew the Heart position with 99% confidence I still couldn't bear the thought of setting up declarer's Clubs, so just played a Heart straight away. John claimed three off.

3NT-3 felt like a good score, but of course the other table found the Heart lead and the result was duplicated. If I'd have cashed that extra trick it would have been a 3 IMP gain.

Apart from that things went quite well. Following my creed of being bold, I opened 4♠ rather light.

I guessed Spades right and went two off. This felt like a good result. On the other table West made what I think is the correct 5♥ overcall, but unfortunately despite 28 high card points the same distribution that inspired me to open 4♠ meant with best defence it went one down, so that was a 5 IMP loss.

If the match was 2x8 boards we would have won comfortably, but losing 20 IMPs at the end of each half meant we lost the match overall by 5 IMPs.