Had a reasonably successful day.  Buddy called me this morning and we decided to play pairs if we couldn't find another half.  Luckily, Gerg (Greg Hinze) was there and he hooked us up with a nice pair.

The first half was pretty rocky.  We went for 5 bills into a white game on the first board.  They made a thin red game on the second.  A few flat boards and then I faced this decision.

K8 / T83 / KJ32 / A832

All red in 4th

1C - 2C - 3C - ?

Give me

K8 / KJ3 / T832 / A832 and 3 Hearts is pretty automatic, but with pard probably 5-5-2-1 am I worth a LAW-breaking bid with only 3 points in his suits when we may or may not own half the deck? 

I passed and we missed a thin 4 Hearts (Buddy was 5-6-2-0, which obviously made bidding a more successful proposition.)

More flat boards followed and then I felt like I could have beaten a partscore that I let through.  I felt like we had about a lose 15 card.

Luckily, our teammates brought back a moose (we lost 3 on the 500 hand as expected, and lost 11 on the missed game, but they had generated lots of fat plus positions seemingly out of thin air) and we won the first half 43-15.

Second half and this problem arose:

Q98 / K6 / T9752 / A43

Buddy opened 1 Club and I chose to bypass my glorious Diamond suit in order to protect my major suit holdings and bid 1NT.  Buddy now bid 2 Hearts.  Fair enough, my Ace of Clubs is a huge card, my King of Hearts is a huge card, slam isn't out of the question, so I cooperated with 3 Clubs.  Now Buddy bid 3 Spades.  What now?

To me it boils down to whether you trust partner or whether you think partner's just out to torment you.  You've got 3 big cards for slam, which is as much as you can possibly have.  Is he really bidding like this with some cheesy ratbag when he could have just raised you to 3N (or invited with 2N) and given you a chance to try to make it?

...

Ummm yeah, actually, he is.  Instead of AKx / Axxx / x / KQJxx or even better AKx / Axxx / - / KQxxxx someone turned up with:

KJ6 / J875 / A / KQJ62

I bid 6 Clubs.  Was I too optimistic?  Maybe, but I still think the hand I played him for is a helluva lot closer to the hand he showed than the hand he had is.  Your mileage may vary, pipe up if it does.

Here's the last problem hand:

QT9 / AQ5 / AQT972 / A

I'm going to impose a 1 Diamond opener.  Partner reponds 1 Heart.  What's your rebid?

I'll update this particular episode later in the week.

Wish us luck in the semi-finals (and finals, knock on wood) tomorrow.