Friday 15 August 2014

Thursday 14 August

Playing N/S with Gerry in a Teams at the club accompanied by Russell and Len we came in the middle with an average score.
In truth there wasn't a lot in the hands and part scores played a major part.

There were just two hands I played that were interesting.

Rod opened 2H, I doubled and Gerry bid 3D which shows at least 8 points.  I bid 3N.
Alex led 8H.  I considered what would happen if I won the first round, could I play the diamonds to keep Alex out? However even with 5 diamonds I only have 8 tricks and have to guess where the black Kings are.
So 8H was ducked all round, Rod won the second with Ace and cleared the suit (playing JH) while I discarded a spade. and Alex a McKinney 3C. Alex is no danger now so I finessed JD. Noting Rod's JH, Alex exited with 9S to Rod's 3 and my Q.  If these cards are genuine then ROd started with KJ103 of spades but nobody bothers about any rules for weak twos these days. However I am fairly confident that Rod has KS and therefore Alex has KC.  Iran the diamonds, Rod's first discard being a McKinney 10H and then Ace and another club for my 9 tricks.
400 didn't get a lot of imps as Len was left in 2H at the other table and went three off for -300.

Six pairs were in 4H but four went 1 off (including our opponents).
David Shenkin led 4C.  This looked unusual, not likely to lead a little doubleton and Jxxx(x) isn't much of a lead, so I thought it might be singleton and this greatly increases the chance of a bad trump split.
On a 3-2 break there are ten top tricks but I thought I should take some insurance.  Now if it is a singleton and 4 hearts there is no worry about losing a ruff. So I played for a spade ruff, I won AC and played Ace and another spade.  Cameron won this and played back JC. David thought for a while and rightly discarded a diamond (if he ruffs I have my original 10 top tricks --- that is why there was no worry about a ruff). However I just played a third top club and discarded a diamond.  David ruffed but I had my contract by ruffing a spade to make up for the lost club. Note if it had been a doubleton club or four or five to the Jack, I would have made 11 tricks by playing for the spade ruff.
I assume those that went down immediately drew trumps and when they had a loser tried a diamond to the Q to no avail.

No comments: