Had a pretty ugly
set with Jeff tonight. Usually when we do badly it's because of a couple of bad misdefenses or a misguess or occasionally a clearcut butchery but tonight it was all bidding.
First board out of the box I picked up all white
QT98542 / T5 / 4 / 875
Jeff opened 1 Diamond. Righty whipped.
Now I get to play my favorite game. The good old 'I wonder if this is a fit bid situation' game.
Surely over a double by an unpassed hand Jeff will take this as a good old weak jump shift, no?
I trotted out 2 Spades.
Lefty bid 2NT (okay, if Jeff's unsure maybe he can figure it out from the opponents' bidding) and Jeff bid 3 Diamonds.
Well, I hope he has them, because I don't.
Now Righty bid 4 Hearts.
Off the hook again. I hope 4 Spades isn't a good dive, but if I thought it was I should have bid 3 Spades already. I passed.
Now Jeff bid 5 Diamonds. Wonderful.
That got whipped by Righty. Float.
The good news is that we had no Spade losers, 1 Heart loser and 2 Club losers. And Righty only had Qx of Diamonds for his whip.
The bad news is that Lefty had AKJx of Diamonds. Jeff had
A / J / T98753 / A9632
-1400 was lose 13 and change
http://online.bridgebase.com/myhands/fetchlin.php?id=1537451&when_played=1195675346So 5 boards later I picked up at unfavorable
AJ7632 / Q72 / J532 / -
Jeff passed. Righty opened 1 Diamond.
I'd already gotten burned once today with a 2 Spade bid at an inopportune moment. Should I go for best 2 out of 3? Maybe Jeff will take this one as an intermediate 2?
Sure enough, I was in there with 2 Spades. My suit quality is horrible. The colors are wrong. But I'm 6-4 and pard is a passed hand. This is somewhere between normal aggressive and nuts. I tend to think it's closer to the former, but your mileage may vary.
Lefty made a negative double. Float.
Uh oh.
Lefty led the Club Ace. Surprisingly I bought extremely well.
K4 / AJ85 / 4 / J97652
AJ7632 / Q72 / J532 / -
A lot of folks would have bumped it up a notch with Jeff's hand. I'm glad he didn't hang me.
It looks like Righty has QTxx of Spades or something. I'm glad I avoided a trump lead here.
I ruffed the opening lead and played a Diamond. Yes, this is pretty transparent, but the Heart hook just MIGHT be on here and I don't want to give up on that too early.
Righty let Lefty win the Diamond and Lefty belatedly switched to a trump.
K4 / AJ85 / - / J9765
AJ763 / Q72 / J32 / -
It's tempting to take the 'free finesse' and ride this around to my AJ, but why waste the J and ruff my Diamond loser with the K when I can win this trick with the K and ruff my Diamond loser with the 4?
I won in Dummy, ruffed a club, and ruffed a Diamond.
- / AJ85 / - / J976
AJ7 / Q72 / J3 / -
Now I ruffed another Club, (LHO following with the Queen) and got a little greedier than I probably should have. I played a Heart to the Jack, losing to the King (RHO almost had to have that card once LHO shows up with the AKQ of Clubs.)
Righty now cashed a couple of Diamonds, Lefty following, and as expected (but to my relief nonetheless) exited with a Heart.
I won that trick with my Heart Queen and led a Heart to Dummy's Ace. Righty ruffed that and led the Spade Ten. I stuck in the Jack and was home. I ended up scoring 7 Spade tricks with AJ7632 opposite K4 and the suit breaking 4-1. +670 didn't quite get all the IMPs from board 1 back, but it was still an even 13 to the good.
http://online.bridgebase.com/myhands/fetchlin.php?id=1549479&when_played=1195675346
