Having mastered the martial arts, a Langshan rooster turns to mastering the essence of Contract Bridge...

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Correct to be proud?

Played this hand today... I was pretty proud of the my declarer play, but everyone else at the table declared my idiocy. Did defenders muff this, or did I do something right for a change?

Sitting south, I look down at:
AJ52
AK72
K
AJ52

WestNorthEastSouth



1
p3p3NT
ppXA

I admit that 3NT was an overbid... However, this was in a team game in which we were way behind. I was trying to swing (for the first time in my life).

DealerS
VulE/W
Scoring-
LeadQ
Q3
986
Q73
T8764

964
QJT53
J6542


KT87
4
AT98
KQ93

AJ52
AK72
K
AJ52


I won the K in hand, and returned the K trying to set up at least one diamond trick in dummy. I suppose the defense should duck here. Instead, east rises with the A and returns a low . At this point, it seems my only chance to to setup s and hope that the ♠ honors are on my right.

So, I let the spade ride around to dummy - winning there with the Q. A low club to the J holds, so I push out the A followed by a low club towards dummy won in east with the Q.

East tries spades again, but I win the J in hand and push another club through to east's K. East fires out the spade K, which I win with the A and exit with the 5 to endplay east. 3NTX making.

Where could I have done better, and where could the defense have beat me up?

2 comments:

Erdem Ozturk said...

nice play and not an overbid anyway. well done :)

warren said...

West gets plenty of discards on the club tricks. While it might not be clear to signal a diamond switch, certainly dropping the 4 of spades to discourage spades would make sense.

It's hard to fathom what east is doing leading spades over and over again. If partner discourages spades, he should try diamonds. If east leads diamonds twice, they should defeat 3NT.