Went to Houston on Sunday to play in a 12-team GNT-B qualifier with Buddy.  We were on a 5-bagger with Mikey (my partner at the San Antonio Sectional a few months ago) and Jennifer and Jimmy Breihan.

This was my first trip to Houston, in spite of living in Austin for the last 6 years and change.  The club there is really nice, but at $8/session instead of $6/session at the Austin club, I'd rather play here.

We got off to a rocky start when we lost the first match because an opponent revoked.  Our teammates didn't catch it until assignments for match 2 had already been made and their opponents pleaded ignorance so the original result stood.

This was the first hand out of the box for Buddy and I.  A really bad auction.

A / ATxx / KQx / Txxxx

KTxx / J / AJxx / AKJx

Our uncontested auction, starting with the hand on the bottom:

1D - 1H
1S - 2C
3C - 3D
3N - P

I'm not sure what the best sequence is but I know our sequence isn't it.  6 Clubs is almost laydown.  I had the 4X1 hand and really don't like my 3N bid, I should probably bid Keycard and shoot 6 Diamonds.  Clubs were 4-0 offside so 6 Diamonds was beatable.  I think the board was a push.

We lost the 3rd match as well when our teammates played in 4 Spades in a 5-0 fit.  At the break we were 2-2, slightly above average.

Buddy and I were each scheduled to sit out once and so Mikey and I played together in match 5.  Here's a hand from that match:

Axxx / xxxx / Qxxx / x

LHO opens 1 Club and partner bids 1NT.  You're red.  Do you bid at IMPs?

This is one of those 'damned if you do and damned if you don't' decisions.  1NT is an almost-sure plus.  If you trot out Stayman and partner bids 2 Diamonds, you're headed for a probable minus.  Is the parlay of partner having a 4 card major and accepting your invitation and making the game enough to risk bidding?  I passed.  4 Spades makes.

We won the 5th match and were in 3rd place, not far out of 2nd, but a full match out of 1st.

I took my sitout in match 6 and tried to take a little nap in the car.  That turned out to be the key match of the day.  We played against the 1st place team and only left 1 or 2 VP's on the table.  All of a sudden we were back in contention.  If we won our last 2 matches decisively, we were overwhelming favorites to win.

Match 7 was a disaster for Buddy and I.

Red vs White

AJTxx / QTx / Jxx / AJ

RHO opens 2 Spades and of course I passed smoothly.  Buddy went into the tank forever and finally emerged with a red card.  What a good partner!  Would it be 800 or 1100?   Just when we needed a good board!  LHO had other ideas, though, and pulled to 3 Clubs.  This was passed around to me.  Now what?

It seems to me your only logical alternatives here are double and 3NT.  Partner is a heavy favorite to have at least 3 Clubs here, so if they're in an 8 card fit whipping 3 Clubs seems reasonable and a more likely plus than 3N, which might only have 1 Club stopper.

Anyway, I whipped, -470.  Ouch. 

Buddy had something like

Kx / Jxxxx / KQx / Qxx

Later in the same match, all red:

Qxxxxx / Axxxx / x / x

I passed in 1st and LHO opened 1 Diamond.  Buddy overcalled 1 Spade!  RHO bid 2 Clubs. 

4 Spades seems normal, but will almost certainly elicit a 5 Club or 5 Diamond bid from one opponent or the other and then I'm stuck with an uncomfortable 5/5 decision.  I decided to operate and trotted out 3NT.  LHO now bid 4 Hearts! and RHO asked Buddy about my 3NT bid.  'I guess he wants to play 3NT.'  RHO bid 6 Diamonds.  Do you now take the dive?

I felt I had too much defense and passed.  Buddy might have a stiff Heart or Kx or by some miracle a Spade might cash.

Nope.  -1370.  Yuck.  6 Spades isn't a fantastic spot, I'm pretty sure it goes for sticks and wheels, but that's still 6 IMPs or so I left on the table.

A couple of boards later, the last board of the match:

AKQxxxx / Jx / Jx / Kx

2 passes to me.  Normally I'd auto-bid 4 Spades, but how could we not be losing this match at this point?  Maybe 3N makes and 4 Spades goes down.  I opened 3NT.  Float.

A diamond was led and the nightmare dummy came down.

Tx / Txx / KQx / AJxxx

Wonderful.  4 Spades is a brick and 3NT is hopeless.  Buddy and I decided later that he should know I'm coming in a major and with such a good hand, he should definitely not leave me in 3NT but that wasn't on my radar as I played it.

I called for the King of Diamonds, knowing it would lose to the Ace and a Heart would come back. 

When it held, I did an inner happy-dance and claimed.  Still, that -470 and that -1370 in a 6-board match made the situation look pretty bleak.

We lost 7 or 8 IMPs on -470, picked up 1 IMP on the Diamond slam hand (+1390) and picked up those same 7 or 8 IMPs on a partscore swing.  We had won by 1.  (Not only that, but we were later to discover that we had moved into 1st place in the event.)  I need a few more bad matches like that.

In the last match I picked up:

 x / AJ9876 / Kxx / AQJ

I opened 1 Heart, Buddy bid 1 Spade, and I made the slight overbid of 3 Hearts.  Buddy trotted out keycard and I showed my 2 without.  Now he went into the tank and I knew that we were missing a keycard and the queen. 

On a previous board in that match against 3NT on the uncontested auction 1H - 1S - 2H - 3N I had to choose a lead from something like:

KJT9 / xx / xxx / Axxx

Dummy had stiff A of Spades and only a Spade lead beats it but I led a (normal?) Club.

Given that result, I expected Buddy to eventually bid 6 Hearts on this hand and he did.

A Diamond was led to the Ace and a Diamond came back, not ruffed.

AKxxx / Kxx / QTx / Kx

x / AJ9876 / Kxx / AQJ

This hand was probably the match as I didn't expect our opponents to get there.  Today was my lucky day and the Heart Queen was singleton, so I claimed quickly.

We only left 1 VP on the table that match (we went +500 defending a freely bid game on another board with no double) and with our 4 VP lead going into that match we had clinched the event.  We had a lot more driving to do, so we bid our adieux and hit the road back to Austin.