Hands from Hilton Head and Valentine's Day weekend

It's February 13 and I am dreading the next few days. Tomorrow is Valentine's Day - arguably a single person's least favorite day - and it's a 3 day weekend with no real plans. Last year, I took off to play 2.5 days at the Palmetto, FL regional before coming home to play/work entirely too much at the Macon regional. I'm debating about what to do this weekend. I made some mild attempts at a typical Valentine's Day activity but to no avail, and my friends have been useless at finding me another date. I'm thinking Mercer baseball season opener on V-Day, then dog park, then bar. Saturday, direct bridge in Macon then go to the dog park and have a relaxing evening at home. Drive to Atlanta Sunday morning to see the first few innings of GT's baseball game, then go to some Husky owner meet up at a dog park in John's Creek, hike at Sweetwater State Park Monday morning and visit the Sweetwater brewery in the afternoon, and of course eat lots of Chipotle burritos while in Atlanta. Who wants to join me on any of this?

I played three days at the recent Hilton Head regional. Results were respectable but below expectations. The bar is pretty high these days. Anyway, Emory and I were 6^th two days in a row in the Open Pairs, followed by 7^th in the Swiss with Bob Simkins and Denny Cahan. Here are a few interesting hands.

Dealer: S Vul: EW	North ♠ AK72 ♥ AQ863 ♦ 7 ♣ T96
	South ♠ 865 ♥ J7 ♦ AK532 ♣ A85

 

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

I got the ♣T lead, which I ducked once just in case he had tried something like a preempt on a five-card suit. I won the club continuation, seeing LHO shed a spade. How would you play this one? Would you play it any differently in an IMP game?

Playing wide open, I would double-hook hearts, and in matchpoints I think it is a reasonable line of play, especially given that it seems like most if not all of the field would reach 3NT.

However, even in a reasonably strong field, this isn’t quite an automatic enough contract to not take a safer line of play. So when I led the ♥J at trick 3, LHO covered and I ducked. A diamond at that point would put me to the test because that would take out the only entry to my hand – cashing both top diamonds and hoping hearts run would be the only chance, and it’s close whether to play to drop the J or play a heart to the 9. Playing hearts from the top wins when RHO started with Tx or Txx with RHO, and ensures no worse than -2. Finessing wins when LHO started with KTxx, gets out for -1 when LHO started with KTxxx, but risks -3 when RHO has the T.

I was faced with a slightly different dilemma. My LHO confidently returned the ♠Q, squashing RHO’s ten. Now, I had the option of leading a spade back and setting up a marked finesse for LHO’s 3^rd high spade, assuming RHO’s T was not from T9 doubleton (I was pretty sure it wasn’t). That would now ensure -1 at worst (with a bad heart split and not finessing the 9). Furthermore, the 5-1 spade split means the available spaces for hearts is now almost even so odds of RHO having 3 hearts go back up a little.

On the actual deal, my LHO took my ♠8 with the 9 and still didn’t lead a diamond, which would force me to cash my DAK, then take a spade finesse and almost certainly lead to -1. Instead she led a low heart, opening the door to an overtrick (I otherwise wouldn’t be able to lead toward the ♥9 and the ♠7 for finesses), but I took the AQ and gave up a heart to just make my contract. Should still be a good score even though double dummy the contract is cold by simply playing a heart to the 9 at almost any point in the play.

With a combined 25 hcp, stoppers in all suits, and no eight-card fits, I would expect most pairs to reach 3NT, and expect making 3 and down 2 to be the most common results. It’s kind of interesting to look at the results on this board from the 4 different levels of pair games:

In A/X: 17 out of the 24 pairs that played the board were in 3NT. 2 made 4, 6 made 3, 2 were -1, and 7 were -2.

In the side game, only 15 out of 36 pairs reached 3NT: 3 made 3, 6 were -1, and 6 were -2.

In the Gold Rush, 10 out of 32 reached 3NT with 3 making 4, 4 making 3, 1 down 1, and 2 down 2.

In the 299ers, 5 out of 23 were in 3NT with 3 making, and 2 down 2.

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In the Sunday Swiss, I picked up ♠-, ♥AKJxxx, ♦QJx, ♣AJxx and partner opened 1NT. Do you have the methods to intelligently investigate for slam/grand slam? As little as ♠xxxx, ♥QTx, ♦AKxx, ♣Kx, a 4432 12-count is pretty much lay-down for 7H but as much as ♠AKQJ, ♥xx, ♦Txxx, ♣KQx, a 4432 15-count, would be a bit of an underdog to make 5♥. Michael Seamon, playing with a client, jumped to 7♥. I transferred to hearts, then bid clubs, partner supported hearts, then we cuebid and stopped in 6H, expecting to be off a minor suit king, which we were and the finesse was off.

In another deal last night, I held ♠AJx, ♥-, ♦T9xxxx, ♣KQxx and saw my partner open 1♦. So I splintered 3♥, which was doubled and passed back to me so I redoubled, theoretically showing first round control. Partner bid 4♣. I think 4♥ here ought to be exclusion (really, in this particular situation any ace-asking bid, even 4♦ minorwood or 4♥ kickback ought to be Exclusion key card) but 5♥ definitely would be. Over one of the lower key card bids, I would have room to find out about the ♠K but over 5♥-response, I no longer had room to do that below 6♦ so I gambled and bid 7♦. Even if partner didn’t have the ♠K, either the finesse might work or he might be able to discard his spades on my clubs (if he has at most 5 black cards, fairly likely on the auction).

Another interesting one from the Sunday Swiss was when I picked up ♠AJxxx, ♥Ax, ♦-, ♣AKxxxx. It’s kind of impossible to accurately bid this hand, especially playing DONT. I started with double, theoretically showing a one-suiter. It went P-2♣-X, so I bid 3♣ and it went 3♦-P-P so I bid 3♠. The auction couldn’t have progressed much better for getting to show this monster 6-5. Partner, with QTx in both black suits and nothing in the reds, understandably bid 5♣ and took all of the tricks.