Poker on the last round

At the weekly club game, our last round was against the pair who usually win. "How are you guys doing?," one of them asks as he sits down. "Pretty good," I reply.

Maybe if we have a good round against these guys, we can win tonight.

First board: they open a 11-13 NT, raised to 2NT and they play there. At other tables, the auction goes 1D-1NT.  1NT played from the other direction turns out to be easier to defend.  First board to the bad guys.

Second board, the bidding is wild.  It goes:

W

West

N

Pard

E

East

S

Me

—

—

—

1♦

1♠

4♥

4♠

5♥

5♠

6♥

Dbl

All Pass

6H doubled, going 2 down is par on the board -- they are cold for 5S and we are cold for 4H. This turns out to be an average board -- some pairs are in spades and others are in hearts.

Third board is another wild board, but this time they forget to double us and we get a top after going down 3 in 5H.   6C made, as did 5NT their way.  One to the good guys.

W

West

N

Pard

E

East

S

Me

—

4♥

5♣

5♥

All Pass

So, last board of the night, for all the marbles.  Another wild hand (I am South):


West made the best possible lead, of the King of diamonds.  Click Next to follow the play.

West, who had the 4th spade and the queen of diamonds, gets squeezed as I run off the hearts. When East didn't return a diamond, I could see this squeeze coming, and so as a flourish, I even discarded the ace of clubs!

I was very happy to have made six on a squeeze, but it was a bottom board for us. Turns out that everyone was making six (probably misdefense by West), but all the other pairs were in 3NT.  How? Perhaps the bidding went 1D-1H-2NT-3NT?

After all the wildness, the round itself turned out to not matter. We ended up winning by a couple of boards.