So, continuing the tournament story (Summer Solace.)  5 boards in and with a little luck we've navigated the raindrops pretty well.  4 more good boards and this story might have a happy ending (a guy can dream, can't he?)

6th board I had another tough bidding problem at unfavorable:

J76 / 65 / JT753 / AQ7

Pard opened 1 Heart and rebid 3 Hearts over my 1NT response.  Do you bid game, and if so, which one?

Since we were red, I never seriously entertained the possibility of passing.  Choosing which game to bid isn't clear, though most would probably bid 4 Hearts (since if pard has spade shortness, you'll look silly in 3NT.)  Here's what partner had:

AKQ8 / AJ7432 / 9 / 94

4 Hearts is on the Club hook or KQ of hearts onside doubleton or tripleton.  3NT is much worse, it needs the friendly Heart position or a misdefense (like pounding Diamonds.)  I guessed wrong and bid 3NT.  Sigh.

Fortunately, partner decided to make the crazy and unilateral bid of 4 Hearts (I usually have a stiff Heart on this auction, in which case 4 Hearts is horrible.)  Unfortunately, the Club hook was off and the KQ of Hearts were offside and the defense didn't slip.  Sigh.

Fortunately, partner decided that the right way to play the hand after a Spade lead was to win in hand, bang down the Ace of Hearts, a high honor falling on your left, then continuing a low Heart, the other high honor making an appearance, winning the Spade continuation, drawing trump, playing a Spade to the board, a Diamond to the 9, (winning!) taking the losing Club finesse and claiming.

Winning with bad bridge is almost as bad as losing with good bridge.  But not quite.  Surprisingly, nobody else duplicated my partner's result of +650.  Another 8 IMPs and change for the good guys.  3 to go!

The next board was another adventure.  I picked up all red in 4th:

KQ9732 / A / Q976 / 75

Lefty bid 1 Heart, pard was in for a Spade (Hello!) and Righty bid 2 Spades.

My plan was to bid 4 Spades, hope to buy it (maybe even doubled) and compete to 5 Spades if 4 Spades didn't buy it.  I hadn't really planned much beyond that.

Over my 4 Spade bid, Lefty bid 5 Diamonds, Righty corrected back to 5 Hearts, and I followed through on my plan by bidding 5 Spades, expecting to buy it, probably doubled.

This was passed around to Righty who bid 6 Hearts!  Doh.  What do I do now?

Is double still Lightner on this auction?  I doubt this is going down more than 1 (at least one opp has a Spade void, so where are our tricks?) so I passed. 

Partner leads the Ace of Spades and dummy tracks:

J4 / T95 / AT / KQJT92 Dummy (your RHO)

KQ9732 / A / Q976 / 75 You

Declarer ruffs, leads the 3 of Clubs to the King, and plays a trump off to your Ace, now what?

I thought just maybe partner forgot to lead his singleton club, so I played another club, costing a trick for the defense.  Doh.

Luckily, it was the 3rd trick for the defense that it cost.  Partner scored his Queen of trumps from an original holding of Qxx and they were down 1.  Since we had 3 top losers in 5 Spades, this was still an OK result, but doubling and defending perfectly would have netted a huge +500, which would have covered most of the damage caused by the luckboxes who were allowed to play in 4 Spades (and there will always be a few of those.)  +100 was worth just shy of 2 IMPs.  Incidentally, I had to return a Diamond to hold the hand to 10 tricks.  Not easy on the auction, but really our only chance with running Clubs.

J4 / T95 / AT / KQJT92

- / KJ8632 / J8532 / A3

The penultimate board I was a passenger again.  Pard had to play 4 Hearts with a Club lead after we bid 1-2-4 (opening leader overcalled 1 Spade.) 

86 / QT9 / J8753 / AT3

KQ / AJ87432 / K2 / KJ

I'd probably still be in the tank if I had to play it, but partner won the Jack in hand, banged down the Ace of Hearts like a good Rabbi, and when the King fell on his left, had 11 easy tricks (1 Spade, 7 Hearts, and 3 Clubs.)  The Ace of Diamonds was onside, however, so all reasonable lines worked.  Still, another bullet dodged.  Win 3 more IMPs and change with 1 to go.

The end was anticlimactic for a change.  1NT - 3NT on a Heart lead:

KT63 / K3 / A83 / Q852

AQ / AJ84 / J52 / KJT3

Count 10 tricks?  I did too.  11 when the Spade Jack fell third.  3NT was as close to flat a contract as you find on BBO (one guy missorted his hand and bid 2 Spades on the doubleton in a stayman auction, but who can argue with the +450 he scored in 4 Spades?)  We won +0.22 IMPs for +660 (good thing I didn't claim 4 early, we would have lost IMPs on the board.)

A 9 board tournament, winning IMPs on every board.  I think that's the longest set I've played where I've done that (I've won IMPs on 9 in a row before, but not EVERY board of the set.)  We won the tournament (19 tables) topping out just over 40 IMPs.  Usually you need your opponents to go nuts on every other hand to win one of these short BBO tournaments, but we proved that as long as just you and your partner go nuts, and it works, that's sufficient.