Thursday 15 May 2014

Wednesday 14 May

Playing N/S with Gerry came first with 67%. Just steady play and a little help from our opponents.
Two interesting slam hands our way:

Gerry opened 2N (21-22).  I gave 6C some passing thought. I find these hands with 30 points and a long suit invariably make 12 tricks.  However two Jacks and a Q outside and total reliance on the clubs running puts me off especially as I reckon nobody else will be bidding it.  In fact of course it is 6N I should be bidding if I decide to go for it, to protect partner's tenaces.
Anyway, like everyone else I just raise to 3N. Louis led 9S and Harold ducked the Ace. On the run of the clubs Harold feels the squeeze in the majors and inevitably lets a diamond go, 13 tricks. Bidding slam would have got us 1 more match point.

Gerry berates himself for this hand and it is obvious when you see it.
Russell opened 1S and Gerry bid 4H.  Back to Russell who finds a 5C bid, 5H by Gerry and now Len has no problem bidding 6C.
What should I do? Gerry must have some spades as Len and I don't. Four I reckoned, maybe 8 hearts.  So what can our defence be? It might be nothing. If he is 4-8-1-0 and that is a singleton Ace, we can make 6H.  With 4-7-1-1, he wouldn't have bid 5H.  I reckoned 6H was more likely to be a winning bid than 6Cx, so 6H it was.
Len does well not to lead AD, that would have been lay down. The lead is 10S to Gerry's Ace.
If Russell has AD (more likely), it is also likely to be at most doubleton on the bidding. Gerry won AS, ruffed a spade, led a diamond from table to Russell's Q, ruffed the AC, ruffed a spade, ruffed a diamond, ruffed a spade, ruffed a diamond, had to lose a spade at the end for down 1. However even if Russell has doubleton AD, that's not the right way to play it. As Gerry later realised, if trumps and diamonds break, or AD on side, this hand is easy. Win AS, lead a diamond, even if AD is offside, lose that, win trump return in dummy, ruff diamond, ruff spade, ruff diamond and cross to trump to run the diamonds. Could have been brilliant.

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