My love affair with negative doubles after opening 1NT continues.  I don't know how I played them the other way for so long.

Another 'hairy double' hand from Sunday's set (the hand may be off a card, I should have written it down):

3rd seat favorable

 

K98 / xxxx / Qx / Axxx

 

Buddy opened 1NT and RHO bid 2 Diamonds.

If I weren't playing negative doubles I'd have to run through Lebensohl (not sure if I should show a Diamond stopper or not) or take a huge position and smash this for penalties in what could be a 9-card fit.

But here, it's an easy negative double (planning to bid 2NT over 2 Spades.)

Buddy thought a bit and passed.  Normally I'd like to lead a trump, but I can't bring myself to lead one from Qx.  I led the 8 of Spades (3/5 leads anyway, so it should be readable.)

Dummy tracked:

QTxx / Axxx / xxx / xx

More than Declarer deserves ...

Declarer played low from Dummy.  Buddy thought about it for a bit (I figured he had AJ) and played low.  Nice play!

 

Except that Declarer won her Jack.  Doh!

 

Now Declarer played a Heart up and a Diamond to her Jack and my Queen.

 

QTx / xxx / xx / xx

 

K9 / xxx / x / Axxx

(My Heart spots were generally lower than dummy's but I don't remember the exact spots, sorry.)

Of course, I couldn't draw an inference from the BIT at trick 1, so I continued Hearts (which is probably right anyway.)

Buddy won the Q and put the Queen of Clubs on the table, covered.  I won the Ace and fired back a Club.

Now Buddy cashed the Ace of Spades and played another Spade ... the moment of truth!

Declarer followed to the 3rd round of Spades and I was able to exhale.

Buddy scored another trump in the wash (I think he started with KTx, though if he did he should have played a trump when in with the Queen of Hearts) and we'd taken our 2 Spades, 1 Heart, 2 Diamonds and 2 Clubs for another +500 and all the matchpoints.

Buddy had floated my negative double with a bare minimum and only 3 trumps:

Axx / KQx / KTx / QJxx

Still, I like this decision a lot better than the other one (though both worked great) since he had no guarantee of a safe plus score and so decided to go for the brass ring.

At the end of the hand, Declarer's partner wanted to know what she had and why she bid.  She had

Jxx / Jx / AJxxx / Kxx

She told her partner that 'Paul' (I'm pretty sure she was referring to local expert Paul Kelley Jr) had told her group to come in over 1NT bids.  Her partner told her that wasn't such a good idea vulnerable.

I pointed to the board and said something like 'At these colors you've got to be really careful.'  But I don't know if she's willing to let Paul off the hook just yet.