Strathcylde vs Rowan

Anna and I had a fairly subdued game here, mostly defending unbeatable contracts and not beating them. My highlight was making this game:

I thought about overcalling 3♥ but decided the hand was too good, then when Anna showed some points got to 4♥. I got a Club lead.

You can see there are 10 easy tricks, seven trumps and three Aces. But after the King of Hearts brought out the Ten, I tried a Heart finesse. I think the odds were in my favour, as South had a weak NT sort of hand (they played five card majors) so I felt was more likely to have Qxx than xx. Anyway it's a close call, and I got it wrong.

Now that my ten tricks have turned to nine, I need the Diamond finesse. But after playing through other suits it become increasingly clear that finesse was doomed. So instead I played of all my trumps, and when South came down to a top Spade and ♦Kx I played a Spade, letting him win then lead a Diamond round to me. If he'd have seen it coming he could have avoided the endplay by throwing all his Spades (hoping his partner had the Jack), but at this level it's much more likely I would just finesse so he probably defended correctly (another option would be blanking his Diamond King and keeping two winning Spades).

The other tables played 4♥= (playing Hearts from the top), 3♥+1 after a weak jump overcall (playing Hearts from the top) and 2♥+1 after South opened 1NT (also taking the losing trump finesse).

My other featured hand is a fun one:

I opened 1♥ and when North doubled Anna made a pre-emptive 3♥ bid. North bid 4♦ and I made perhaps a slightly undisciplined 4♥ bid. North wasn't done and bid 5♦, passed out.

Declarer has hit a rather nice dummy - with five trumps and a singleton to take care of your Spade losers. We took our three top tricks for one off.

How about 4♥? There's four losers, five if the defence arrange a trump promotion, but it's not easy to defend, and might make in practice. On the other tables there was a 5♦x-1, 4♦= and 4♥+1, where in defence North took one Diamond then switched to a Spade.

Overall we lost the match 10-6 to put us near the bottom of the Glasgow League Division 2.