How tall are the clouds your head is in?

I have this hunch that the way storm heights are traditionally computed is wrong, but try as I might there is something about the problem that I'm not quite grokking.  It's an important question because much of air traffic control relies on these storm heights. Therefore, the right way to formulate the problem, in order to prove or disprove this hunch, has become an obsession.

Playing in the STaC ("sectional tournaments at clubs") game at the club today, I was preoccupied by the weather research problem and not completely focused on the game. So much so that I completely spaced out on the first nine boards, against the first three pairs.

On one board, we were in a dicey 3S contract, reached after I'd opened a strong 1C.  Lefty led his singleton in dummy's side suit and got a ruff.  Now, all I had to do was to pull the outstanding trump, preserving my lowest spade as an entry to the board and take discards on the now-established side-suit. Except that I led my lowest spade before pulling the last trump! Disaster, as they now cashed their tricks.

On another board, I held:

♠ KQJ109843 ♥ x ♦ xx ♣ xx

and the bidding goes 1NT to my left, 2NT by partner (minors) and 3NT by righty.  What would you do? 4S seemed like a phantom sacrifice, so I doubled -- partner had  2 of the suits, I had the third.  How were they going to make 3NT?  They didn't make 3NT.  They made 6!

Even 3NT doubled, making 6, didn't wake me up.

What did finally wake me up was the 10th board of the session where I put partner in 7S.  This was the deal:

Vul: N-S

Dlr: North

N

North

♠

KQxx

♥

x

♦

Qx

♣

AKxxxx

W

West

♠

—

♥

Q10xxx

♦

AKxxx

♣

xxx

Lead: ♥8

E

East

♠

xxx

♥

8x

♦

Jxxx

♣

QJxx

S

South

♠

AJ9xxx

♥

AKJx

♦

xx

♣

x

The auction went:

W

West

N

North

E

East

S

South

—

2♣¹

Pass

2♦²

2♥

3♠³

Pass

4NT⁴

Pass

5♠⁵

Pass

7♠⁶

—

—

—

—

(1) 5+ clubs, <= 15 points

(2) Stayman and range ask

(3) 4 spades, 13-15 points

(4) RKC for spades ?!

(5) 2 key cards + Q of trumps

(6) oops

Partner opens 2C, which we play as 5+ clubs and an opening hand. With 6 spades and 4 hearts, I responded 2D which is Stayman and range-ask. West, holding 9 points and piss-poor hearts, now entered the auction by bidding 2H. Partner bids 3S, which shows 4 spades and 13-15 points. My low doubleton in diamonds is suboptimal for bidding Roman Keycard (a cue-bid is probably better) -- but I bid 4NT. Hey, I was not fully in the game. When partner responded 5S, showing 2 key cards and the queen of trumps, I need to bid 6S, which should be off 2 here since we are missing the top two diamonds. But I happily bid 7S, thinking we had everything covered.

As I put the dummy down, I thought to myself that as long as partner held one of the two minor suits kings, we should be fine. But then a chill ran down my spine. If partner held two aces, the king and queen of trumps and the king of a minor, he would have 16 points. With 16 points, he would have opened 1C. As I was mulling over this conundrum, I realized that partner had showed only two key cards and I was missing 3!  Oops.

Fortunately, though, East had led a heart and partner still had a chance. He played it carefully, making the grand when clubs split 4-3.  Still nothing wakes you up like putting partner in an atrocious grand slam.

That shitty grand slam bid which came up roses proved to be the turning point of our game.  We ended up with 58% for second place, but I should have shown up ready to play on board 1, not waited until board 10.   We were just 1.5 match-points from being first and any one of the first 9 boards would have helped.