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.