San Jose 2/17

14.
Matchpoints. You sit north.



Opponents play 12-14 NT, so opener should not have 12-14 balanced on this auction. 2S is perhaps pushy, but here you are.

Partner leads the SK and continues with the 9. You overtake with the T. Wanting to score your trump queen before leading a third round of spades, you exit with a club.

Declarer cashes the HK, realizes that something fishy is going on, plays a heart to the ace, and makes 5.

Meanwhile, in reality, I just played the SA at trick 3, giving partner his ruff, and declarer dropped my HQ to make 4. Should I have tried the imagined line?

Update: I was staring at this hand and realized that if I wanted to try this, I should NOT overtake the spade and let declarer think that I'm an idiot. I can't say that she'd be wrong to think that...

San Jose sectional 4/4

Oh I totally forgot to mention this one defensive hand.

LHO opens 3D, RHO bids 3N. You're on lead with J75 J65 xxxx KJx.

Anyway I chose to lead the CK lol. Dummy was xx x KQJxxxx Axx or something like that. A merrimac coup at trick 1 if declarer has Qx of clubs and not the DA! Anyway we got 1 trick here for -690 and 0 matchpoints.

I can't remember the complete layout, but it takes a heart lead to hold them to 9, and a spade lead may give them 10 or 11.

San Jose sectional 4/5

Played 108 boards this weekend; two session pairs on Saturday, teams on Sunday. Did about average in the pairs game, but unfortunately my hand records are somewhere not here.

I screwed up two games in the Swiss, but it doesn't seem to have mattered. We played in the BCD, and we just came up against weak opponents throughout.

Here's one I screwed up the auction and the play, a double whammy.

Partner opens 1N unfavorable
1N - (2S) - 2N* - 3S
p - (p) - 5C - (x)

I had K QTx Q9x KJTxxx. I wasn't thinking when I bid lebensohl, I just wanted to show a spade stopper and play 3NT. Of course 3C is a better bid.

I get a small spade lead, and I see

Ax
xxx
AJ8x
AQxx

K
QTx
Q9x
KJTxxx

I won the K, played CK and CA, SA pitching a heart. Then I just exited a heart. Turns out righty had HAK all along, oh well. Third heart ruffed in my hand, and at this point, I should make it. I can't remember how trumps were divided anymore, but lefty is most likely to have the diamond length, so I should play her for KTxx. Anyway I did, but I played off two more rounds of trumps, killing entry to hand before doing this. Not so great.

I underled an ace in some auction and partner had doubleton. There were some glances when I won the second round and delivered a ruff for down 1...

Against the last pair, we had a system win. Righty opened 1NT and I had AKxxx of hearts and QTxx of clubs (don't remember my other two suits, sorry). I doubled, showing a major and a minor, and they did Stayman/3NT. I led a fourth best heart, partner had QTxx. At the other table, opponents showed their hearts, and teammates scrambled to the 4-3 spade game, making 6.

Another hand, I opened J AJT8x KQ9xx xx and partner gave a 3 card limit raise. I felt aggressive the whole day, and I just accepted the invite. They led a trump, saving me from guessing the heart position. Partner had Q98 K9x Jxx Axxx, diamonds are 3-2. Teammates played 3S-1.

So the day went (in VPs): 9, 12, 20, 37, 57, 76, 96.

We won the whole thing, but screwing up two cold games is pretty annoying.

So this concludes my first week of bridge since a 4 month hiatus. It's exhausting!