Palo Alto 11/25

Well, it was the day before Thanksgiving, and we combined the 299er with the open at the club. This means that the results would have been pretty random, and Ted and I seem to have gotten the best of it, coming in first with a big score.

8.



Can you get to 6H intelligently? We just went 2C - 2D - 2N - 3H - 3S - 4H - 6H.

9.



I basically played this one double dummy, but honestly I wasn't sure what line to take. If LHO is 2155, then drawing 3 rounds of trump and then playing on hearts secures the contract.

If LHO is 1255, then if you decide to play the top three spades, you have to drive the 4th spade before playing on hearts. Otherwise, RHO can ruff the 4th round of hearts, and your 5th heart is stranded.

I started a big spade, crossed to dummy with a heart, and led the spade 9. I planned to finesse it, but RHO saved me the trouble and covered. If LHO played a heart honor when I crossed, then I'd play him for 2155.

22.

I HATE HOLDING ACES!



Somebody help me :((

Update: Neil set me straight on why I have to fly the ace. Thanks Neil!

BBO 11/4

A common defensive theme that I really hate.



Basically declarer steals a heart trick and it's all over. The lead was a 4th best diamond, I cashed the king and ace. At this point I shifted to a trump, trying not to give anything away.

How can west know to fly the ace? Am I supposed to lead back the HQ at T3?

Oh yeah, declarer also misplayed and let me in when I could've just led a third trump and beaten it. Then, I followed suit and misplayed by not leading it. But never mind, let's assume declarer ruffs two diamonds before the defense can draw trumps.

Thinking about it now, I guess there's no real reason to duck the ace. The reason we duck aces is because we don't want to grant declarer extra tricks in the suit. But in this case, we have no slow club tricks that we can pick up. Dummy has KQx of clubs, so the extra heart tricks that we may be allowing declarer won't help him.

It just feels like an automatic play to duck the ace.