Had a 12 board team match playing with a pard from Quebec with Jeff and JZ against Izzy's Shanghai squad.  Jeff and John had a pretty lousy card, but found a good result on the last board (+800 to cover our -500 against a red game) to win the match by 2.  While my partner and I had solid results (our one soft result we went down 1 in 5 of a minor on a hand we should have stopped in a partscore, but the opps went down 3 in 3NT on the same hand) I DID find time for one UGLY defensive lapse (the lengths I go to for my readers -- I sure hope you appreciate it.)

All white in 1st.

82 / AK / 9865 / Q8753

You pass, LHO bids 2 Diamonds, multi.  Pard goes into the tank.

Crap.  We haven't discussed our multi defense.  (Hence the title.)

Pard comes out of the tank and bids 2NT.  Is that some kind of offensive/shapely type NT hand or just a regular 2NT overcall?  Whichever it is, I'm gonna bid 3NT and hope we land on our feet.

RHO comes to the party and bids 3 Hearts, pass or correct.  I started to bid 3NT anyway and then I thought that would be greedy and that I should settle for the more likely (albeit somewhat smaller) plus in 3 of a Major whipped.  I doubled 3 Hearts.  Izzy bid 3 Spades, passed around to me, and I doubled that too (we're not making 3NT if pard has nothing in Spades, so this seemed sensible at the time.

Partner led the Ace of trumps and I saw this dummy

J63 / T642 / J7 / AKJT

I should have played the 8 of Spades at trick 1, but a card can't be attitude and suit preference at the same time and I wasn't really sure how partner would take it.  He also should probably know I have Heart cards for my double of 3 Hearts.  But since he might take it as suit preference, it's the right play since it can't really do much harm.

Partner continued with the King of Spades (so far, so good) and then switched to the King of Diamonds.

Izzy won her Ace and played a Club to the Ace.  She continued with the King of Clubs, pitching the 8 of Hearts and then led the Ten of Clubs.  Do you cover or not? 

J / T642 / J / JT Dummy (RHO)

- / AK / 865 / Q87


I obviously couldn't break tempo to make the decision.  I knew she had a Spade entry back to dummy so it seemed normal to duck smoothly and hope for the best.

While it's true that Izzy had an entry back to dummy, she couldn't afford to use it right away.  This was her hand at that point.

J / T642 / J / JT

QT97 / J5 / 43 / -

This was her most likely shape (6-3-3-1) once she showed up with a stiff club.  Obviously the cover is mandatory, because she needs that Jack of trumps in dummy to ruff a Diamond so she can't squander it immediately.  She's got to let us in to cash our 3 tricks in the reds to go with our AK of trumps.

Obviously, once I duck she just pitches a Heart and claims 9 tricks.

Fortunately, she either paid me a HUGE compliment or had a brainfart of her own.  She ruffed the Ten of Clubs and when the Queen didn't fall on her left, claimed down 1.

At the other table, John decided to have a little fun and started psyching opposite Jeff's multi opener, then running when the opps doubled.

The opps shrewdly decided that they'd rather set an undoubled contract 5 tricks than set a doubled contract 1 trick.  They passed out John's 3 Heart psych and collected +250 so we still lost 4 IMPs on the board.  (Okay, technically we can beat it twice on a Heart lead, but very few people would find the path to +300.)

Pard's hand

AK / Q973 / KQT2 / 962

Izzy's hand

QT9754 / J85 / A43 / 4