I feel like I should have stuff to write about but I don't really have any interesting deals in my scorecards from the 5 STaC games I played in last week. I saw lots of comical things in the last week but no brilliant things.  The 27 MP I won in the STaC puts me over 500 for the year and basically in a tie for the D7 1000-2500 Mini-McKenney. yay. Here's to hoping my first 4 days at the Myrtle Beach regional are better than Peter Boyd-Bowman's.

 

One of the more amusing deals I saw was when I held ♠AQ9x, ♥Q, ♦KJxxx, ♣Qxx and see partner, in first seat favorable, open one very nebulous Swedish Canapé diamond, showing 0-5 diamonds and 11-16 points. The whole auction: 1♦-X-XX-1♥; 2♣*-2♥-3♥-X; 4♣-4♥-X-P; P-P.

*2♣ confirmed that Sean had a one-suited hand with long clubs. My low club lead out of turn was accepted and dummy, who bid 1 measly heart in response to the takeout double, showed up with a ridiculous 14-count: ♠xx, ♥AKxxx, ♦AQxx, ♣Jx. 28 hcp are visible with opener and takeout doubler still hidden!  What the heck were they bidding on? Fortunately 4 black cards cashed and we got a decent score. It was, indeed my RHO, not Sean, who was the joker on this deal with ♠Jxxxx, ♥Jxxxx, ♦x, ♣xx.

 

I liked my defense on this board.

Dealer: N Vul: EW			North ♠ Txxx ♥ Axx ♦ KJx ♣ xxx
West ♠ AJxx ♥ KQ9 ♦ T8x ♣ K9x						East ♠ x ♥ Txxxx ♦ Q9xx ♣ Axx
			South ♠ KQ9x ♥ Jx ♦ Axx ♣ QJTx
	West	North		East	South
	—	Pass		Pass	1♣
	Pass	1♠		Pass	2♠
	Pass	Pass		Pass

I got off to a low diamond lead. The J was covered and won by declarer. Declarer then crossed to the ♥A to lead a spade and I let the K win. She then crossed to the ♦K and led another spade. I took the ♠AJ and cleared spades. At this point declarer began working on clubs but it was too little too late. I was able to win the K, cash my red winners and then lead a club to partner who had another red winner, the ♦9 in this case, for the 3 trick set.

Which Squeeze to play for - never mind, there's only one possibility

Last night I had an interesting play problem in a slam. In 6NT, there are 11 top tricks. How would you plan on getting the 12^th?
 

			North ♠ AK8x ♥ AKx ♦ Ax ♣ Kxxx
			South ♠ Tx ♥ QJx ♦ KT8x ♣ AQJx
	South	West		North	East
	1♦	Pass		1♠	Pass
	1NT	Pass		6NT	Pass
	Pass	Pass

After the lead of the ♥T, I played a spade to my ten and LHO's Q to rectify the count and try to set up a squeeze. Back came a heart, and I then cashed the clubs. LHO discarded 2 low diamonds and RHO ditched a heart. Both followed to the 3^rd heart and to the next 2 rounds of spades, with the ♠J appearing from RHO on the last spade. Under the ♦A, LHO drops the J. Should I now play a diamond to the T or a diamond to the K at trick 12?

In this 2 card ending, I know one opponent has a good spade and there are 3 diamonds out. If RHO has the good spade, the contract is un-makeable because LHO would surely have ♦Qx left. So, we must assume that LHO has the good spade and RHO has 2 diamonds left. The odds are 2 to 1 in favor of him having Qx left rather than xx. With 3 cards out, there are 2 ways he can have Qx but only 1 way he can have xx.

So does this mean that finessing is the right play? Well, no. It's what I did and it took me awhile to figure out that this was clearly the wrong play. LHO wouldn't play the J under the A at trick 11 unless it was his last diamond or if he had only QJ left. And I had a whole count on the hand (except I didn't know for sure who had the remaining spade), so LHO had to have another diamond. Playing the J from Jx left would be giving me an opportunity to finesse that he could prevent by keeping the singleton J. Therefore, the only legitimate line of play was to play for the squeeze where LHO started with ♠Q9xx and ♦QJxx. I'm glad I finally figured that out. I knew it wasn't just a restricted choice available spaces problem but I couldn't figure out why until just now.

Seattle NABC

While many people are just getting into the swing of things at the fall NABC I am on my way back home after 3+ days there. Richard Popper and I started with a good session in the Nail LM Pairs and ended with a great session in the consolation (regional A/X pairs). Unfortunately the two middle sessions were pretty terrible, on both our parts as well as luck. Additionally I scratched with my dad in 2 side games. Strangely, in this my 16th NABC, it is the first one in which I played in no midnight games. Drinking with Mikey and Alli won out one night and kibitzing/wandering around aimlessly won out the other night.

My favorite part of the tournament was certainly our round against Curtis Cheek and Lynn Deas in the LM pairs. We collected 47 out of 50 matchpoints against them. Here is first deal against them (board 9 Friday afternoon):

x
JT9x
Axxx
AKxx

AQx
Qx
KQJx
xxxx
 
I opened 1D and wound up in 3NT after Curtis on my left overcalled 1S and was raised. He led away from the SK at trick 1, which gives me trick #8. Trick 9 would have to come from either clubs or hearts. At first it seems that I would have to rely on clubs splitting 3-2 since there isn't adequate time to set up a heart. However, I ran diamonds immediately to see if there would be any interesting discards. Sure enough, Curtis ditched a heart and a spade.

This allowed me to be able to set up a heart trick and lose only 2 spades abs 2 hearts, assuming spades were originally 5-4 as had been indicated. A club pitch from his initial holding of QJxx would have allowed me to set up a 3rd trick easily but had he pitched both of his hearts, I probably would have gone down as relying on a good club split would be the only reasonable option.
 
Popper and I ran into a couple of situations where we were not on the same page on auctions that cost us dearly. 1NT-2C-X-3C; 3D-P-3H sounds like Smolen to me, and the continuation P-3NT-P-4S sounds like responder is 6-4. Of course, I could have just bid 4S over 3D as that cannot be misinterpreted - it could just wrong side the contract. 1S-P-2S-X; 4S-4NT-P-5D; P. Is this a forcing pass situation? I think so but I suppose there is a good argument for it being not forcing since 4S could be based on a more preemptive hand with playing strength but not much defense.

Unexpectedly passing partner's mostly forcing bid

I've had several opportunities in the last few days to pass partner unexpectedly. Last night at the club, my partner twice intervened over a 1NT opening. In the first instance, I held ♠QJxxx  ♥A9xx  ♦KTxx  ♣- and after 1NT-P-P, partner doubled, which for us showed 1 suited with clubs or diamonds and a major. I have a decent hand and partner is almost sure to have clubs so I converted to penalty. We were only able to set it 1 because partner couldn't find the difficult shift of a diamond at trick 2 and I would up being endplayed into leading a heart to dummy's good but otherwise unaccessible Q or lead into declarer's ♦AQ.

 

The second instance of this occurred when partner overcalled 2♣ over my LHO's 1NT, which shows diamonds or a major-minor two suiter. This time I held ♠Tx  ♥xxx  ♦x  ♣QJTxxxx so I happily passed and let partner play the 7-1 fit.

 

The most interesting of these was Sunday in the Swiss teams in Spartanburg. I held ♠x  ♥AT9xxx  ♦-  ♣98xxxx and the auction was 1♥-2♥-P to me. I really did want to pass this and I think I probably should as bidding anything could easily get us in trouble and get us in a doubled contract. This time I was optimistic so I bid 3♣, natural. P bid 3♦ and I tried 4♣, which got raised to 5. All in all, this was a better contract than 2♥ (we did in fact get to our only 8 card fit) but were just a little too high. P had a rock: ♠KTxxx  ♥-  ♦AKQJxx  ♣AQ.

Spoil the Squeeze but give up the same trick in the process

My hand of the tournament from the recent Roswell sectional this past weekend is this cute hand where I was all set to squeeze RHO in the black suits until Michael White made it easy for me by leading the ♣J.
 

Dealer: N Vul: NS	North ♠ Qxxx ♥ Q ♦ AJx ♣ KTxxx
	South ♠ A ♥ KJx ♦ KQxxxx ♣ A9x

 

North	East	South	West
1♣	Pass	1♦	2♥
Pass	Pass	3NT	Pass
Pass	Pass

After winning the heart lead in dummy, I crossed to my hand with a diamond and played another heart, already planning to attempt to squeeze RHO in the blacks. With the 1 heart loser and 11 sure winners, I would be able to arrange to score up a 12^th trick in a black suit if RHO started with ♠K and 3 clubs. This is what the 4 card ending would be like with the last diamond to be played from my hand:

Dealer: E Vul: EW	North ♠ Qx ♥ ♦ ♣ Kx
West ♠ x ♥ x ♦ ♣ Jx		East ♠ K ♥ ♦ ♣ Qxx
	South ♠ ♥ ♦ x ♣ A9x

West ditched a heart on the last diamond, dummy a small spade, and east could not protect both spades and clubs so my ♣9 would score the last trick.

 

In reality, Michael White shifted to the ♣J after he took the ♥A, thereby breaking up the squeeze because I needed both club entries for the squeeze because the 2 threat cards (♠Q and ♣9) are in different hands. However, in doing so, he allowed me to make the extra trick by simply taking the K and finessing for the ♣Q. I wasn't happy because I didn't get to execute the squeeze, RHO wasn't happy because he thought Michael had made the only lead that let me make an extra trick, but Michael knew I was making 6 anyway and that 6♦ would make so he wasn't unhappy.