Stanford 5/13

You reach 3N after the auction

1N (14-16) 3S*
3N

*13(54)

They lead S3

6 KJ85 QJ32 AQJ4
AQ7 AT42 A9 T653

11/23 BBO

Playing against robots, I tried to throw declarer in with the trump 4. He underplayed the trump 3 and I was toast. Would've been more spectacular if he had exactly one trump left and had preserved the 3, but he had two trumps left. Still.

Stanford 10/7

1H 1S; 2H 4H

4H, smallest diamond led (4th best)

Txxx Ax Axxx KQx
AKx QJxxxx Kxx x

I'm not sure how many times I'm going to miss this until I get it right.

bridge/horror story

Weinberg: It was a dark night and he could swear he was hearing screams in the forest outside, but as a kibitzer, he had no rights and could say nothing

BBO 6/5

3rd r/r, KQT632 J97 Q85 6

p - 1H - 1S - 2H
3H - p - 3S - p
4S

LHO leads H8, we see

9854 63 AT AQ732
KQT632 J97 Q85 6

RHO wins the Q then K, then shifts to a small trump. You put in the K, LHO following the J.

Now what?

not counting

The auction goes (1C) 3H (p) 4H; (5C) which I hit on the way out. How many clubs do you think declarer has? Approximately $TEXAS, as my friend Weinberg would say.

In the play of the hand, dummy comes down with 3 clubs, I have 2, partner showed up with 3. I still spent the entire hand thinking declarer had 6 clubs. I dunno. Lack of focus? Lack of belief in what just conspired in the auction?

BBO 5/22

We hold JT9x K987 A3 JT2, second seat r/w

The auction goes

(1C) p (1S) x
(2C) 2H (p) p
(3C) p (p) (3H)
(4C) x*
*enough already

We lead DA, we see

--------------AKQ6
--------------542
--------------9762
--------------83
JT93
K987
A3
JT2
-------------- (closed
--------------  hand)

First trick is A 2 4 5. The 4 is encouraging.

Now what? It looks like a typical cash your winners and go for the promo, but what order are you supposed to go about it?

I was lazy and continued the diamond. Partner won the K, declarer following the Q, and I think partner has a real problem now.

The full hand:
----------------AKQ6
----------------542
----------------9762
----------------83
JT93-----------------------------542
K987----------------------------AQJ6
A3-------------------------------KJT84
JT2------------------------------9
-----------------87
-----------------T3
-----------------Q5
-----------------AKQ7654

After the second round of diamonds, partner has to come back to our HK, then to the HA, and then the promotion. But then declarer has not a very good hand for his opening.

I think the fault lies with me. My thinking was that declarer might have 3 diamonds, I could ruff the 3rd round, cash HK, heart to partner's ace, and then a 4th round of diamonds. But it's really impossible to get two trump tricks out of this holding considering declarer must have 7 or 8 clubs on this auction. I was really very lazy here.

We ended up with an extra fifty instead of a 2 trick set.