Had an interesting set with Jeff against Bruce Gowdy (Bruce started with a random guy and then switched after 6 boards to one of his regular online partners.) Jeff and I scored the 4 biggest swings (out of 23 boards) and still lost by almost 10.
I didn't have many tough decisions to make. Jeff did and got a higher than usual number of them wrong, unfortunately. My only controversial decision was what to open with:
Q3 / AQ876 / A5 / AKT4
I like 2NT for a bunch of reasons. 1 Heart tends to wrongside it. Protect the Spade Queen. Decent spots. Surely if this hand isn't a 20 count it's a 19.9 count.
Unfortunately we were wide open in Spades and the opening leader had the length and Hearts were 3-3 (assuming I wouldn't have guessed to finesse for the Jack) so 4 Hearts was a lucky make. Pretty unlucky parlay to lose almost 7 IMPs.
Here's one hand Jeff did get right, the last hand of the set:
I picked up in 1st:
K62 / 76542 / AK97 / 6
Jeff opened 1NT in 3rd and it was up to me.
I almost bid Stayman on the hand (remembering that other hand with 5 rags where it worked well and we got to play 4 Spades redoubled for a huge result.) But I thought that with my stiff and Aces and Kings that this was a hand where the 5-3 fit might be best even with a suit you'd only want to see if you were playing some kind of hi-lo poker. So I bid 2 Diamonds.
Jeff bid 2 Hearts and I bid 3NT (I don't tend to show the minor unless it's a 5-bagger or I have slam interest.) Bruce smashed it. Passed around to me.
Bruce is probably doubling on Hearts, which is actually good news because I have nothing in the suit so Jeff's Heart cards are working. Of course, if Bruce has AKQJx then we're hosed, but you can't worry about absolute worst case scenarios like that. It was the last board. I just hoped that Jeff wasn't operating and I sent it back.
Bruce's partner led the Jack of Spades and here's what Jeff saw:
K62 / 76542 / AK97 / 6
A543 / KJ9 / Q86 / AQ2
Jeff played low from Dummy and RHO played the Queen. Jeff ducked. Do you agree with this line so far? How would you play?
Bruce did this as a passed hand, so unless he totally psyched his double he's got something like AQTx or AQTxx of Hearts. If that assumption is correct, you can set up 2 Hearts to get you to 8 tricks (2 Spades, 2 Hearts, 3 Diamonds and 1 Club) and hope you can squeeze or finesse your way to a 9th trick in one of the 3 other suits.
This is reminiscent of a Pavlicek quiz hand. Ducking the first trick could be fatal if the King of Clubs is offside and they find the Club switch. But it's often a good idea to let the opponents in early before they have a clear picture what's going on.
Bruce switched to the 8 of Hearts (phew!) and Jeff won the Jack and played a Diamond up to play another Heart through RHO. This time Bruce flew Ace (his partner discarded the Club 5) and found the Club switch (the 9.) Too late! Jeff flew Ace and cashed the King of Hearts, starting to turn up the pressure on his LHO.
Here's the position as the King of Hearts is cashed (the defense has 2 tricks so far):
Dummy K6 / 765 / K97 / -
LHO T987 / - / 3 / KJT
Jeff A54 / K / Q2 / Q8
Jeff was working towards this end position:
Dummy K6 / 76 / 97 / -
LHO T987 / - / - / KJ
Jeff A54 / - / Q / Q2
When he cashes the Queen of Diamonds, LHO has to throw a Spade (or else Jeff can duck a Club to his now bare King.) Jeff then plays 3 rounds of Spades and his LHO has only the KJ of Clubs remaining and is endplayed into conceding a trick to Jeff's Q2 of Clubs.
Jeff's LHO saw the squeeze coming and pitched a Spade early. Jeff played 2 Diamonds ending in Dummy (you don't have to end in your hand on this line) and threw him in as per the discussion.
+1000 didn't win us the set, but it was the only double digit swing of the session, brought the margin down to single digits, and was a nice way to go out. If Bruce finds the Club switch at trick 2, it's a thousand points the other way (though to be fair, the hand is cold double-dummy if Jeff wins the first Spade and guesses everything.)
Bruce's hand
Q / AQT8 / JT42 / 9873
Jeff's LHO's hand
JT987 / 3 / 53 / KJT54
