My Bad Declarer Play

It's rare that I totally misplay a hand. I mean, to misguess something or take the wrong finesse is totally acceptable but I can't remember the last time I so obvioiusly misplayed a hand twice in the same session, like I did Tuesday at the local club.

K8x
KQxx
AJx
xxx

A9xxx
AJx
Kx
Axx

The deuce of hearts, playing 4th best leads, was led against my 4S contract. I managed to go down in this contract despite spades being 2-3 and hearts 4-2. How could I possibly lose more than 1 club and 1 spade? I started out intending to duck a round of spades as some sort of guard against a 4-1 split. But when I led toward dummy at trick 2, lho played the 10, I won and led back a spade and rho played the jack. Hmm. Now I decided spades would be 3-2 so I can win this and take a diamond finesse to possibly discard my other club loser. But when the diamond finesse lost to east, she (a weak player) led back another heart without drawing a trump or leadind a club to dummy's weakness. Little did she know that was the winning defense at this point. I could have salvaged it (for making only 4 instead of the 5 that i was entitled to after the opening lead) by winning in dummy and playing the ace of diamonds. Instead I played the A from my hand and then led another heart, ruffed, and now a club. Looking back at it now, I still don't see how I went down because the 8 of spades now is an entry to the 2 good red cards, but I know I got the hand right because I took the time to copy it down before leaving. Anyway, if they would just lead clubs from the beginning, this wouldn't have been an issue at all.

A few weeks ago, against another weak pair, I held some hand with 6-4 in the majors and made a weak jump overcall in the 6 card suit. At the other table in the team game, my counterpart bid michaels, his partner picked the 4 card suit, and our teammates wound up playing the hand in game and at our table they made a partscore. My partner had 4 small in my 4 card suit and KQ in my 6 card suit. Anyway, at some point in the hand, our teammates had to decide whether my hand was 5-5 and the hand opposite mine bid hearts with 3 dead instead of spades with KQx, or whether the michaels bidder was 6-4. I would play the michaels bidder was 5-5, and my teammate who played the hand thought the same thing and went down in the contract. So, think like a bad player. Are bad bridge players more likely to pick 3 small over KQx or to bid michaels on 6-4 hands? I don't know, but the teammate who was dummy was very adamant that a bad player would always pick his better suit if the lengths are equal. What do you think?