Spent a couple of hours watching Jeff and JZ playing against Wally and Piotr in a team match, so I didn't play many hands tonight.  The team match was interesting, but it was a set of preselected hands, which I'm not a fan of. 

Here's a hand I played in another Individual IMP Pairs tourney.

3rd seat unfavorable

AT9832 / T / 2 / JT876

Partner passes, Righty bids 1 Diamond.

A lot of times with 6-5 hands (and no 2-suited call available) it's right to just pretend you've got a 7-bagger, at least if the 6 card suit has good texture and also if the 6 card suit is a major and the 5-bagger is a minor.

This is a borderline case, since the suit is okay, but not great (AJT932 would be a lot nicer) and also because of the vulnerability.  If I were playing in a 'serious' game, I'd bid 2 Spades.

But the nice thing here is that in an Individual, the opps haven't had a chance to discuss anything.  They don't know if double here is negative or penalty.  Also, it's highly likely that they have an as-yet undiscovered Heart fit.  The clincher was that my partner's profile didn't impress me and making this call might take the fate of the board out of his hands.

 

I bid 3 Spades.

 

LHO tanked for about 20 seconds and came out with 4NT.  Excellent!

 

Righty bid 5 Diamonds (both profiles said Advanced and 0314, so I was assuming he was answering Keycard in Diamonds, but who knows) and that was the final contract.

I hopefully stabbed my singleton Heart (if they're off 2 Aces, there's a good chance that my pard will win this and give me a ruff with my singleton trump.)

KJ6 / 74 / KJ5 / AKQ95 Dummy (LHO)

AT9832 / T / 2 / JT876

 

Hard to fault LHO for getting excited with this hand.  I'm not sure what I would have bid in his shoes.  I wonder if he intended 4NT as natural.

On the Ten of Hearts, my partner played the Queen and Declarer won the Ace. 

A Diamond up to the Jack held (at this point I was wondering what was going on, since I thought Declarer had shown just 1 Ace.)  Surely partner would have won the first Diamond to try to give me a Heart ruff, no?

Declarer continued with the King of Diamonds and NOW partner wins his Ace.  I hope he has the King of Hearts ready to cash, so I encourage Spades, just in case he's forgotten the auction.

Instead, partner continued with a 3rd round of Diamonds.

Huh?  He's looking at what he would presume are 5 running Clubs and he's helping Declarer draw trumps?

Sigh.

Declarer won the Diamond and played a Club up.  No point in splitting ...  He played the Ace from dummy and we scored the 2nd trick for the defense when partner ruffed.  Oh, THAT hand ...

Pard put me in for the setting trick with my Spade and I gave him another ruff for down 2.  +100 was worth 6 2/3 IMPs.

I wasn't the only one who was 6-5 on the hand.

Pard held

74 / Q98652 / AT864 / -

 

Declarer had a borderline opener:

KJ6 / 74 / KJ5 / AKQ95

 

Q5 / AKJ3 / Q973 / 432

On double dummy play and defense, 3 Spades doubled would have been -500 except for the unlikely lead of a low Spade from KJ6, which nets +800.  Obviously not great, but not easy to find and -500 is hardly the end of the world here.

G'night!