Board 111

Board 111
Our side vulnerable

♠ K J 7 6 ♥ A J 7 ♦ 4 ♣ K Q J 10 3

I open with one club, LHO bids one heart, and partner raises to two clubs. RHO doubles. I bid two spades. LHO bids three diamonds, and partner bids four clubs. Partner rates to have a singleton for that bid.  It's certainly not in hearts. And it's probably not in spades, both because the opponents don't seem interested in playing spades and also because my two spade bid appears to have excited him. My guess is he's 3-4-1-5.  Neither opponent should have six diamonds on this auction, but perhaps LHO canaped with 5-6 in the red suits.

RHO bids four notrump. LHO shows no aces, and RHO bids five diamonds, which ends the auction. Since they stopped short of slam, partner should have an ace; but that doesn't leave RHO much of a hand for his Blackwood call.  What hand can he possibly have missing two key cards and the spade king that warrants bidding this way?  I'm about to find out.  Partner leads the deuce of clubs.  (Another strange development, since I was expecting a spade lead.)

	NORTH ♠ A 10 8 5 ♥ 2 ♦ A K Q 10 9 5 ♣ A 5
		EAST ♠ K J 7 6 ♥ A J 7 ♦ 4 ♣ K Q J 10 3

West	North	East	South
		1 ♣	1 ♥
2 ♣	Double	2 ♠	3 ♦
4 ♣	4 NT	Pass	5 ♣
Pass	5 ♦	(All pass)

I see.  He's not missing two key cards.

To begin with, North's hand is not my idea of a responsive double. A responsive double should be a relatively balanced hand. I generally describe it as a penalty double without a trump stack. Of course, no alternative really springs to mind. I don't mind risking a non-forcing two diamonds with a fairly good hand, but this particular hand is well outside the bounds.  Personally, I play three diamonds as natural and game-forcing (roughly a strong jump shift, since that's what you need to force to game without a fit). With that agreement, three diamonds is the obvious choice.  But  I suspect it's more common to play three diamonds as fit-showing.

As for North's second call, I don't like it on principle. The purpose of Blackwood is to find out if you're off two aces. If you bid it and sign off when you're off only one ace, you probably should have bid something else. Again, it's hard to say what that something else is. I doubt South would accept any invitation looking at the trump suit he must be looking at. And it looks as if they're off a spade trick (at least after the spade lead both North and I were anticipating), so they probably can't make slam unless South has the heart ace. Perhaps Blackwood actually is the most practical solution, but it still turns my stomach.

Declarer rises with the club ace. I discourage with the three. Declarer cashes dummy's five of diamonds (show off!), then leads the deuce of hearts. I rise with the ace and play the ten of clubs. Declarer ruffs and, in due time, takes the rest. Making six.

	NORTH ♠ A 10 8 5 ♥ 2 ♦ A K Q 10 9 5 ♣ A 5
WEST ♠ 9 4 3 2 ♥ K 10 4 ♦ 3 ♣ 9 8 6 4 2		EAST ♠ K J 7 6 ♥ A J 7 ♦ 4 ♣ K Q J 10 3
	SOUTH ♠ Q ♥ Q 9 8 6 5 3 ♦ J 8 7 6 2 ♣ 7

So they didn't have a spade loser! It's a good thing we kept our four-four spade fit a secret. North surely would have bid a slam if we hadn't.  Perhaps our teammates will get there.

At the other table, the auction begins the same way, but my teammate holding the North cards finds a different practical solution. Over two clubs, he bids three notrump. That seems like a reasonable call to me. He has eight tricks. All he needs is for his partner to contribute one.

For some reason, South decides to let him play there. Perhaps his partner has yelled at him in the past for pulling his three notrump bids. But it's hard to see how it could be wrong to pull with this hand.  If partner is balanced, four hearts rates to be a better game.  If partner has solid diamonds, it's surely right to pull.  And he can't have solid spades, since you're looking at the spade queen.

Three notrump is down one for a ten-imp loss.  We're losing ground and running out of time.

Me: -420
Jack:+50

Score on Board 110: -10 IMPs
Total: -41 IMPs