I thought I'd painted myself into a corner on this hand from a matchpoints tournament I subbed in last night.

All white 2nd.

 

A743 / K432 / - / KT653

 

Pass to you.

 

I learned the basics of the game from a 1960's book in my high school (Lisgar) library and from watching reruns of 'Championship Bridge' with Charles Goren and his sidekick, Alex Dreier, on PBS.  I've always felt that if Goren considered it an 'optional opener' that I would open it.  (I also open 95% of hands where I have 12 HCP, regardless of my distribution.)

So I bid 1 Club, LHO bid 1 Diamond, pard ('Expert', no country flag, 2/1 0314 capp in profile) tanked and came out with 2 Clubs (I sure hope he doesn't have a 4 card Major for this tank) and RHO bid 2 Hearts.

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.  I hope pard doesn't hang me later.  I bid 3 Clubs (I'm not really interested in doing more because of my major suit holdings and my knowledge that Diamonds are breaking badly.)

LHO passed and pard went into the tank again.  Sigh.  But he ultimately emerged with a green card.  Sweet!

RHO bid 3 Diamonds and this was passed around to pard, who again tanked and came out with 4 Clubs.

4 Diamonds says Righty, passed to pard, who whipped it.  Doh!  If pard couldn't double 3 Diamonds, we may well not be beating this.  But with any luck I have 2 tricks on defense (1 in each major) and I'd rather try for a plus score than take an almost-sure minus in 5 Clubs doubled. 

Pard leads the 6 of Spades.  Declarer plays low from dummy.

KJ85 / AQ765 / T95 / 2 Dummy (RHO)

A743 / K432 / - / KT653

I wonder which is more likely.  Did the opps miss their 4-4 Spade fit (win Ace and give pard ruff)?  Does partner have 62 (duck the first spade to maintain communications)?  Or does partner have the nightmare holding of Q96 or QT6 (duck the first spade to muddy the waters)?

Even though it's probably more likely that ducking here will make life easier for us later than not, when it's wrong, it's embarrassingly wrong.  If partner has a singleton, he wants his ruff now.  So, I won the Ace (declarer played the Ten) and returned a Spade (the nebulous 4.)

Pard ruffed!  Good partner.  He returned the Queen of Clubs (I tried overtaking just in case) and declarer won Ace and ruffed a Club.  Declarer ran a Diamond into pard's Queen and the Jack of Hearts came back, to dummy's Queen and my King.  A 2nd Spade ruff quickly followed and pard scored another natural trump trick in the wash.  +500 was worth 8 and a half IMPs.

Pard had my back:

6 / J9 / KQ632 / QJ984

The 2 Club bid (marginal underbid) and Spade lead are interesting choices.  I'd have probably chosen the 2 Diamond marginal overbid and led Clubs to go for the tap.  But 2 Diamonds probably slows the opps down and we took our tricks on defense, so it's hard to argue with partner's decisions.

Oh, and if you were wondering, 5 Clubs is a trick short on a non-Diamond lead (only 2 losers but only 10 winners.)

6 / J9 / KQ632 / QJ984

A743 / K432 / - / KT653