Nearly Amazing

I’m spending the weekend playing with Alli at the Atlanta super sectional. After a 3rd place in bracket 1 compact KO with Theri an Meg, we were in evening swiss playing against Mike Cappelletti Jr and partner. In the 6 board match, I had 3 tough interesting hands that I could have been a hero on but none quite worked out for me. First, I was declarer in 3NT:

Dealer: Vul:	North ♠   Kxxx ♥   Q9xxx ♦   Tx ♣   Ax
West ♠   AQx ♥   A8x ♦   Qx ♣   KJxxx		East ♠   Jxx ♥   KT ♦   AJx ♣   Qxxx
	South ♠   xxx ♥   Jxx ♦   Kxxxx ♣   xx

I opened 1NT (west), Mike bid 2D for majors, and Alli bid 3NT and I got a low heart lead. After inserting the 10, hoping he had lead from QJxxx, I made the mistake of not ducking.  If I duck, knowkc out the club, then give up the diamond K to south, she won’t have another heart to lead and I’ll come to 1 spade, 2 hearts, 2 diamonds, and 4 clubs for the contract. I still could have made the contract by endplaying Mike but I forgot to cash the ace of diamonds before running the clubs. Mike would either have to discard a good heart, discard his diamond exit card, or blank his K of spades before I throw him in with a heart at trick 9. Of course, if he blanked his K of spades and kept his second diamond, I’d have to guess that he started with 4 spades instead of 5. I’m not sure I would get that right, but without cashing the diamond before putting him in, he is sure to have a safe exit card.  grr. Fortunately, Chris Moll also went down 1.

Next, I was in 4S on these cards afte Mike (north) had opened 1C and his partner bid 1D over partner’s double:

West ♠   J8xx ♥   Txxx ♦   JTxx ♣   Q

East ♠   KQT7 ♥   Kxx ♦   AQ ♣   AKxx

The lead was the 5 of diamonds. Clearly I needed to take the take the A, play a club to my hand and lead a spade or heart toward dummy, but I didn’t quite expect the lead to be a stiff, so after a lost finesse and a ruff, I went down 1. The 4-1 trump split is a bit annoying anyway, so I may wind up going down anyway, and they did go down one at the other table as well.

In the last board of the set, after 3 pushes and 2 +1’s for the good guys, I found myself defending 4H.

Dealer: Vul:	North ♠   98xx ♥   QJx ♦   x ♣   KJxxx
West ♠   AKxx ♥   Kxx ♦   Txxx ♣   Tx		East ♠   JTxx ♥   xx ♦   AKQx ♣   xxx
	South ♠   Q ♥   AT9xx ♦   Jxxx ♣   AQx

Yes, I probably should double or bid 4S but I didn’t like my values for 4S and Mike surely has some goods. Anyway, we all thought she was cold on a spade or diamond lead, but it looks like tapping her could be best. She has 9 tricks in the round suits but needs a diamond ruff for trick 10. That doesn’t seem like it should be too difficult. But I started with a club, thinking we may need a ruff to beat this thing since chances are they each have a stiff in spades and diamonds. She won in hand, played a diamond to my partner, who led another club and looked quite disappointed when I followed suit. Next was a H finesse into me. If I duck and she repeats the finesse, I can take that and lead the last heart to set it, but she should forgo the second heart finesse and just cash the heart ace and start running clubs to make the contract. I didn’t duck but what now? I can now see her 10 tricks. I can’t stop the diamond ruff. Actually, we all missed this but it turns out I can still defeat it by leading another heart. Then when she trumps a diamond, she can’t get to her hand to pull my last trump. If she leads a spade, I can win and cash a diamond or two. In this case, she can’t run the clubs with a trump out because my trump left is a small one instead of the K. So, what did I do when in with the heart king? I led my lowest spade, of course. After winning the Q, we all waited a couple of minutes and the kibitzer finally announced that it’s her lead, totally surprised. If partner has the Q, I can get my club ruff to beat the contract. Instead they made 5 easily from there. Meh. 4S went down 2 undoubled at the other table and that was the match.