Both my bidding and play were poor. Here's an example of a poor bid. Jeff opened 1NT, RHO overcalled 2S and this was my holding:
E
East
♠
x
♥
Kx
♦
AJ10xxx
♣
KQ9x
What would you do?
I bid 3D (going through 2NT would have been a sign-off), so this was forcing one round. Over his 3NT response, I bid 4S (a general-purpose forcing bid). Jeff now bid 5NT (pick-a-slam). This is where I went off the rails. What should I have bid? 6C, of course. Instead, I bid 6D and then proceeded to misguess the direction of the diamond finesse for down 1 (Would you do better? If dummy shows up with Kx, who would you play for the Queen of diamonds?)
Here's an example of a poor play. The last-but-one board of the night, I lost my concentration and decided to play a dummy reversal line on this 4S contract:
W
West
♠
10xx
♥
AK
♦
xxx
♣
AKJ10x
Lead: ♥7
E
East
♠
AKxxx
♥
10x
♦
Kxxxx
♣
x
Dummy has three straight diamond losers! What was I thinking?
A pleasant, fun evening, nevertheless. Pity my bridge wasn't better.
I had fun, Lak. And I look forward to playing with you again when you next are traveling to the area.
ReplyDeleteKind of you to overlook a few hands where you took a better defensive tack than did I.
On the 4S hand, I think looking to elope small trumps in your hand (as you did) is a reasonable approach. However, with only six top tricks (AK's of each non diamond suit), even three ruffs in hand (or, let's say as an alternative, three clubs via a finesse or drop and two ruffs in hand) does not add up to ten tricks in total. At least one diamond trick is needed. Ergo, at some time, declarer needs to lead a diamond toward hand, I think.
In the old "count winners or count losers" debate -- where the best answer must be "both" -- it seems that on hands with lots of aces and kings, counting winners turns out to be more important.