Event 3 - Match 6 - Board 5

Board 5
Our side vulnerable

♠ K 9 5 ♥ A J 10 ♦ A 9 7 ♣ 10 6 5 4

Two passes to me. I open one notrump (12-14), partner bids two diamonds (a transfer), I bid two hearts, and partner passes. RHO isn't through yet. He doubles. As I've mention before, I think you should play support redoubles in this auction. To play that redouble shows a desire to penalize the opponents, as redoubles of take-outs doubles sometimes do, makes little sense here for obvious reasons.

Jack and I have no agreement about this redouble one way or the other, so I assume he will interpret it as natural. I redouble, hoping it will encourage him to compete with an appropriate hand.

LHO bids two spades, which is passed around to me. I can hardly bid to the three level on my own. I pass, and partner leads the queen of clubs.

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

West	North	East	South
Jack	Adrian	Phillip	Thomas
Pass	Pass	1 NT1	Pass
2 ♦2	Pass	2 ♥	Pass
Pass	Double	Redouble	2 ♠
(All pass)
112-14
2Jacoby transfer

That's some balance! I agree you should avoid selling out at the two level when the opponents have found a fit. But on this auction, you don't know if they have a fit or not. This is a dangerous auction to balance on in general, and this flat, defensive hand does not make it any safer.

If partner has the heart king and queen-jack doubleton or third of clubs, we can take two hearts, a diamond, and a club. To come to six tricks, we will need to take two spade tricks (queen-eight of spades, maybe) or a spade and two diamonds (ten doubleton of spades and queen third of diamonds).

Declarer plays low from dummy, I encourage with the six, and declarer wins with the king. He plays the three of hearts to the deuce and eight. If the deuce is honest count (as it rates to be, since partner didn't compete to three hearts), then partner has king fifth. That was awfully gutsy of him ducking the king of hearts. Why not hop and play another club? How did he know declarer didn't have the ace of hearts?

I win with the ten and shift to the four of clubs--deuce--jack--ace. Declarer plays the three of spades--five--queen--eight. That looks like ten-eight doubleton, which means we have a spade trick. Now all I need is queen third of diamonds in partner's hand. That gives declarer a 4-3-3-3 pattern. The only way declarer can make this is if he can endplay one of us. Can he? Say he leads a heart to my ace. I cash the club ten and tap dummy with a heart. If declarer plays ace and a spade, I have my fourth club as an exit. It doesn't appear there is anything declarer can do.

Declarer plays the six of hearts, and partner plays the king. Since I know how to defend, it would be a serious error for me to duck this, suggesting I needed partner to do something that I couldn't do myself. If I duck and partner can think of any logical reason to play a diamond, he should do so. I overtake with the ace and lead the ten of clubs--eight--seven--nine. Now the jack of hearts--seven--four--spade four. Declarer plays the six of spades to his ace and partner's ten and leads the deuce of diamonds. Partner plays the eight. I suppose that's queen-ten-eight, which means we were never in any danger of being endplayed. We could have led diamonds from either side if we had to.

Declarer plays the jack of diamonds. I take my ace, cash the spade king, and lead my last club. Declarer classily pitches a diamond on it and claims the balance. Down one.

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

Unless South leads a trump, I suspect I would go down in two hearts. The percentage play in hearts in a vacuum is to cash the ace and finesse through South. If you finesse through North, you can't afford to cash the king first, so you may lose to a singleton queen. It's true that North would balance on some hands with heart shortness (perhaps all hands with heart shortness for this North), so finessing through North does have some appeal. Unfortunately, you lack the communications to do that conveniently.

My teammates went to the other extreme in balancing. They sold out to one heart. Selling out so low apparently had the secondary effect of causing them to lose interest in the defense. They allowed declarer to make three, so we lose three imps.

Table 1: +50
Table 2: -140

Result on Board 5: -3 imps
Total: -5 imps