Seaside Regional Awesomeness

So, the trip to Seaside, Oregon, was as fun as expected. I thoroughly enjoyed jogging on the boardwalk and playing with Alli and hanging out with all the people I met there. The cards and luck were there for us to rack up 60 or 70 points in 4 days but it took me half a session to get used to playing with Alli again so we didn't take full advantage of all the gifts we were given and finished the 4 days with almost 39 points.

Saturday we played in a bracket 1 compact KO. After winning the first match in a landslide, I found myself in 6NT on the last board of the second match, a match I thought we were slightly leading at that point.
 

Dealer: N Vul: NS	North ♠ AJxx ♥ QT ♦ AKJx ♣ QJx
	South ♠ Kxx ♥ AJ9x ♦ T9 ♣ AKTx

East	South	West	North
			1♦
Pass	1♥	Pass	1♠
Pass	3NT	Pass	4NT
Pass	6NT	Pass	Pass
Pass

West led a standard ♠T. There are 9 top tricks with at least 2 more available in hearts even if that finesse loses, and possibly an extra trick or two in diamonds or spades. Seems like a decent slam to be in and certainly one both tables will bid.

Against my better judgment, I put in the J at trick 1 – probably not the best play because west is more likely to have led from T9xx than QT9 but this time it is irrelevant. The J gets covered I you win the K. Next I cross to dummy with a club to take a heart finesse. It loses to the K and he plays another heart. It seems that I’ll have to take the diamond finesse for the 12^th trick but what other options are there?

After some thought, I realize that if the same person has the ♦Q and 4 spades, he can be squeezed. I apparently didn’t go through the calculations enough or else I would have reached the correct conclusion. After running the ♦A, ♠A, the hearts and clubs, the little spade in hand can be the spade threat while the ♦KJ in dummy poses a diamond threat. I find out that west had 4 hearts, 4 clubs, and at least 2 spades and east 3 hearts and 2 clubs and at least 2 spades. That already places east with more diamonds than west and therefore a more likely candidate to hold the crucial Q. In the two card ending south would be on lead with a small spade and a small diamond while dummy has ♦KJ left. Either the spade will be good or the diamond Q is now singleton... IF the same hand had the ♦Q and 4 spades. The question is whether that is more or less likely than a straight diamond finesse.

Given the heart and club splits, it puts east as a heavy favorite to have started with 4 spades and 4 diamonds. If east has 4 spades, it’s a 57% chance he has the ♦Q (he has 4 out of the 7 outstanding diamonds) and therefore a 57% chance the squeeze will work. But if spades are splitting 3-3 (east therefore being 3-3-5-2), there is no squeeze because either opponent can hold the spade guard. And if west had the Q, it would show up on the second round anyway, so there’s no reason to finesse even in that situation. Then there’s the unlikely scenario that west was 4-4-1-4 and east 2-3-6-2 in which case there is no chance.

Unfortunately, my counterpart was in 3NT making 5 so we lost 13 imps, the entire margin of defeat. The roll Alli and I were on after placing 2^nd and 4^th in the huge open pair games Thursday and Friday came to a halt - should have just played more open pairs. Despite being in an area where we knew very few players, people were noticing that we are good and wanted to play with us and Alli has a hard time saying no. Later, I'll write about another similar slam hand that I went down in at a critical juncture in the Sunday Swiss.