After the not-so-successful team match last Friday I had a fun set with Jeff.   The highlight of the set was the following hand, that was followed by 3 other interesting hands (1 bad, two good.)

I picked up All Red in 1st

AKQJT / AJ9764 / 5 / A

Nice hand.  Some might open this 2 Clubs and I don't have a real problem with that.  But I chose 1 Heart.

Lefty passed and Jeff bid a Spade! 

Righty passed and it's up to me.

I wish my spades weren't quite so solid.  AKQJ9 would have been ideal (I might need a fast entry to the board if Jeff has, say, the King of Clubs and they don't lead a Diamond) but this hand still has a lot of slam potential.  I wish I could keycard on Hearts, and maybe bidding 3 Diamonds would have worked well (to discourage the lead and to try to elicit a Heart bid from Jeff, after which I can bid Blackwood and stop in 5 if he doesn't have the Ace of Diamonds or King of Hearts.  Alternatively, I might be able to deduce that he is short in Hearts, in which case slam still rates to be good.

However, 'twas not the day for science.  I bid 6 Spades.  I like the bid better if the contract is likely to be cold if the opponents lead the wrong suit, but here the outcome is unlikely to depend on the lead (might make 7 instead of 6, but won't make 6 instead of 5.)

That was passed around to Righty and he thought his scattered 10 count warranted a double.  I expressed my opinion with a blue card and he led the Queen of Clubs. 

A lazy performance by Jeff led to +2070.

Here are the hands:

AKQJT / AJ9764 / 5 / A

7653 / Q8 / AQT / 7652

Jeff won the Ace, drew trumps in 3 rounds, and led a low heart towards his Queen.   Yes, that guarantees the contract, but so does playing a diamond to the Ace and leading the Queen of Hearts through the guy that doubled the contract.  Even if he miraculously shows out you have the spots to ruff out the ten.   If we hadn't been doubled, no biggie, but you've gotta play all out in rewound contracts.  (Ironically, my one full charge in St Louis in the Jacoby Swiss was a cold rewound contract I butchered on day 1, but we had tons of good results that match and won it handily.)

Doubler held:

9 / KT5 / KJ843 / QJT8

Yeah, that's the type of hand that takes a lot of tricks when the guy on your left opens a Heart, the guy on your right bids a Spade, and the guy on your left bids 6 Spades.  Doh.