Gilmorehill in the JJ

Wednesday's match was against GIlmorehill. They were the league champions last season, and the holders of the cup we were playing in, the Jackie Josephson. The cup is a handicap competiion, with each team receiving a start of 1500 points per division between them. Although we were both 1st division teams, we had a 1500 point start on Gilmorehill as they were the holders. Norman and I were playing against John Murdoch and Jim McMenemy, a strong partnership, and both quite friendly. I really enjoyed this game - I'm enjoying playing in the first division significantly more than I was playing in the second division last season. This is partly because I'm playing with Norman (we were split up for team reasons last season), but also because the opposition is noticeably stronger.

We had a spectacularly good first half, doubled in a making game, making an unmakeable game and taking an easy 800 when the opponents got too high on a misfit (this should have been 1100, but I got the defence wrong). We also got a small swing in when John was unable to make any tricks at all from his partner's 6 card club suit in 3NT because I had 7 of them! I'm not sure I've ever actually seen a suit break 7-6 before. Two voids in the same suit has to be pretty unlikely.

I'm going to write about two games, one that I think I misplayed, and one that I think John and Jim misdefended (so we're even on these two), and then one suit combination that came up.

♠ A 6 2 ♥ 6 ♦ 9 4 3 ♣ A T 7 5 4 2 ♠ J 8 7 3 ♥ T 6 2 ♦ K J 2  ♣ K Q 3 * * * * ♠ -  ♥ Q J 8 7 4 3 ♦  A Q 7 4 ♣ 9 8 6  ♠ K Q T 9 5 4 ♥ A K 5 ♦ T 8 5 ♣ J

John Norman Jim Me W N E S 2♥ ♠   3♥ 3♠ - - 4♥ 4♠ -    -    X - -  -

Jim led the ♥6, and I won with the king. I now cashed the ♠K. I think this was a fatal mistake. We had a long discussion aftewards about whether I could still have recovered by ruffing the ♥ loser with the ♠A before giving up a diamond, as then John can't play a spade to prevent my diamond ruff, but I don't think this works because Jim can win the diamond and play a heart through. However, I still think I should have made the contract - ruff the heart loser at trick two, come back to hand with a club ruff, and run the ♠10 really - how likely is it that John has doubled 4♠, even on this bidding, holding three small spades? I'm cold as long as he has the ♠J and at least three clubs (I need to get back to hand twice).

Note that Norman's bidding on this hand is inconsistent - how can the 4♥ bid make 4♠ a better contract? Whereas John's is at least consistent - he shouldn't bid 4♥ in the passout seat unless he's willing to double 4♠ - perhaps another indication that he must have a decent spade holding. Interesting board, in that I think I would definitely go off in 4♠ if we'd bid to it uncontested, but I think I should make 4♠X on this auction - if only I'd been listening.

♠♥♦♣

♠ A T 8 3 ♥ A T 8 5 ♦ Q 5 ♣ Q T 5 ♠ J 7 ♥ 9 6 2 ♦ K 9 6 3 2 ♣ K J 8 * * * * ♠ 9 2 ♥ K J 7 ♦  A J 7 4 ♣ 9 4 3 2  ♠ K Q 6 5 4 ♥ Q 4 3 ♦ T 8 ♣ A 7 6

John Norman Jim Me W N E S - -    - 1♣   - 1♠    - 2♠ -   4♠    - - -

John led the ♥6, and this was the decision point. The defence has to cash its two diamond tricks now, or I'm going to get one away on the ♥s and run home with 5♠s, 3♥s and 2♣s (I can't guess the clubs wrong, as the cards lie). This is probably a decision Jim should have got right - he can see that I'm about to make four tricks in the heart suit, and so the defence has to cash any tricks it has now. This points to cashing the ace of diamonds - if John discourages, Jim will just have to hope that his partner has ♣AK. If he does have those cards, they can always be cashed after the ♦A. 

Jim switched to a low ♣. I won this in hand and drew trumps before playing of the ♥Q. When John followed to this with the 2 I was pretty sure I wasn't making this contract, assuming he'd led from a small doubleton, but when I played another heart towards the table he followed with the 9♥ and, although I took a while to make the next decision, there really wasn't a guess now. Not only would the ♥6 have been an odd lead from J962 - any lead at all from J962 would have been odd given the bidding. I dropped the ♥J and claimed 10 tricks. 

♠♥♦♣

Finally, here's a nice suit combination that I don't think I've ever come across in practice before, although I'm sure I've read about it:

♠ A J 9 4 ♠ Q T 5 * * * * ♠ K 7 ♠ 8 6 3 2

I had to play this suit in NT. When I led a small  card toward the table, John inserted the Q. I'm still trying to figure out if I should get this right now. I think probably I should just win this, and play small to the 9 next time - winning a trick whenever the 10 is onside. Not having properly considered this position before and, to be honest, not often playing against opposition that will make this sort of play, I just won and played small to the J - hoping the Q had come from KQx, although with that holding it seems likely John would smoothly have played low.

I was intending to play a small card to the 9 initially, but if the opponents will always play the Q from QTx, I'm not sure this can be right - the 9 can never force an honour, and can only lose to KQx. In fact, assuming the opponents will also play the Q from Qx, I only get a chance to play the 9 when either all 3 cards are wrong, or an opponent has played low from KQx, so I never gain by playing the 9 on the first round. 

I should definitely play the 9 on the second round though - as this still (assuming I had enough entries, which I don't actually remember), enables me to make an extra trick when LHO had KQT5. In fact, this is even clearer if LHO will always play low from KQx, as it rules out the only position in which playing the 9 actually costs a trick. All in all, glad the combination came up in this match, as against our usual opposition, I don't think I'd ever have noticed it was interesting. Also, I now sympathise with a comment Phil made a couple of months ago about how analysing suit combinations is hard - I hope at least some of that made sense...

We lost the match by something like 1350 points, which with the 1500 headstart means we just managed to squeak through - a different result on either of these boards could easily have swung the whole thing. However, we're through. I'm hoping we get drawn against a non-first division team in the next round, as I quite fancy the challenge of a few thousand point deficit to start things off.

Scottish SIM Pairs

Wednesday we were playing pairs at the club, and it was an SBU Simultaneous Pairs. I'm sure if you look up the results on the SBU website you can see quite how badly we did, but I'm not going to bother... I also made the mistake of sitting North - operating the Bridgemate is distracting enough for me that I'm sure it costs me at least a few percent on the average night.
Here's one that I think was pretty difficult to get right however the auction went - but raised a system question that we (still) haven't discussed. 

♠ A K J T 8 ♥ 3 2 ♦ -  ♣ A K 9 8 5 3 ♠ 3 ♥ K J 9 7 6 ♦ A J T 9 6 2  ♣ T * * * * ♠ 7 6  ♥ A Q T 8 5 4 ♦ Q 8 7 4 ♣ Q ♠ Q 9 5 4 2 ♥ -  ♦ K 5 3 ♣ J 7 6 4 2

John Norman W N E S 2♦ - 2♠ - 3♥ - 4♥ X -  4♠ 5♥ 5♠ -  -

Afterwards, we briefly considered whether I could have bid any differently. I think maybe a reasonable agreement is that a double of 2♠ is takeout of hearts, with the implication that you're willing to defend 2♠X if it turns out that the opener's suit is spades, and partner has anything decent. As it went, I think I would have raised 4♠ to 5♠ without the bid on my left, but now it would have been unequivocally asking for a heart stop. I'm not even sure we're in a forcing pass position here, so I don't think I have any other good way of finding out - the low doubleton heart really doesn't look good from my side. Realistically, I don't think we're ever getting to 7 of either black suit, but I think we might have managed the small slam without the 5♥ bid.

♠♥♦♣

Here's another one that Norman played, which had an interesting decision in the play. 

♠ J 3 ♥ A J 6 5 3 ♦ 8 2 ♣ A 9 8 2 ♠ Q 8 4 ♥ T 8 ♦ K J T 3  ♣ T 7 4 3 * * * * ♠ A T 6 2  ♥ 7 ♦ Q 9 6 5 4 ♣ K Q 6 ♠ K 9 7 5 ♥ K Q 9 4 2 ♦ A 7  ♣ J 5

John Norman W N E S - - 1♦ 1♥ 3♦ 4♥ - - -

I know I might be a bit strong for the leap to 4♥, but with both opponents bidding and two small in their suit, slam didn't seem very likely - I guess maybe I could bid 4♦, but I was somewhat worried this might show a diamond control... Anyway, the play went: ♦J to the Q and A, draw trumps finishing in hand, E pitching the ♠2 to signal for a club, and then Norman exited with a diamond. This was won by W with the T, and then he switched to a club to the Q. Now East switched to a small spade.

Norman decided to run this to the Jack. I think there are several reasons that he might have gotten it right, and one more interesting reason why he might have gotten it wrong. First reason, East opened the bidding. I guess it's possible he had something like Qxx x KQxxx KQx, but given that he opened, there must be a slight presumption in favour of him having a missing Ace. Second, East led a small spade. Now, it might depend on the quality of your opposition, but really how likely is it that someone would lead a small spade away from Qxx(x) looking at Jx in dummy? I suppose it's possible that it was a choice between that, a ruff and sluff or a club away from Kx, but still, another slight argument in favour of playing the K.

Finally, here's a potential argument against playing the K. We're playing in a national Sim pairs - the winning scores are going to be in the high sixties. There's no point in playing for average boards. If your opponent really has just given you a chance to make an unmakeable contract, that gives you a top if you take it, and you should definitely be willing to exchange a certain average for a 50% chance of a top and a 50% chance of a bottom in a competition like this - you can't win without getting lucky.

Two more matches next week, one against Gilmorehill in the cup, with a 1500 point headstart (we're in the same division, but they're the holders) and one against Buchanan, which is the other first division team from the club we play in, who just came up this year, so might well be an important match if we're hoping to stay in the first division.

District Pairs Qualifier, St Andrew

We missed the qualifying heat of the district pairs that was played at the Buchanan because we were playing a match, so we headed to the St Andrew bridge club to take part in theirs. Initially Norman wasn't sure whether we'd be better of playing in the St Andrew or the GBC heat, but then I noticed that the rules explicitly state that you can keep trying to qualify if you fail, so we had nothing to lose. We didn't fail, qualifying relatively comfortably in second place with 54%.

Here's one where Bill declared 2♠. It was tricky, and we did manage to beat it. I'm not sure if he could have played it better, or if we just did well in defence. Double Dummy, it's one off.

♠ A 4 ♥ T 8 7  ♦ K 7 6 5 2  ♣ A K 2 ♠ Q J 9 ♥ Q 2 ♦ 9 8 3  ♣ T 7 6 5 3 * * * * ♠ 8 3 ♥ A K J 9 ♦ A Q J T ♣ Q 8 4 ♠ K T 7 6 5 2 ♥ 6 5 4 3 ♦ 4 ♣ J 9

Norman Bill John Suresh W N E S 1NT X 2♥ - 2♠ - -

I led the ♥K, and another ♥ to Norman's Q. Norma switched to a ♣. Declarer has 7 tricks, and can make an eighth if he can contrive to ruff the fourth heart, so I think we might already have missed our chance to defeat this contract legitimately - I probably need to lead a trump at trick two. However, Bill now drew two rounds of trumps and gave up the lead in hearts, and it was easy enough for us to cash our 6 tricks for one off. It's actually not easy for declarer - I think you have to just play a heart back at trick three, but you can't afford to over-ruff anything in dummy, so you're pretty much playing for spades to be exactly as they are. On the other hand, I don't think there are many other options.

♠♥♦♣

Here's one that I think I may have misbid, but my hand is a bit of a freak, and I can't figure out how to get the information I need from my partner.....

♠ Q T ♥ Q 8 5 ♦ A J 7 2   ♣ A Q 5 4

♠ A J 7 6 4 2 ♥ K J T 9 6 2 ♦ T ♣ -

W E 1NT 2♥ 2♠ 3♥ 3NT 4♥

I'll be honest, thoughts of a slam didn't even really cross my mind during the auction, but they maybe should have. There are basically 5 cards I care about, the ♠KQ, the ♥AQ and the ♦A. That's a total of 15 points. There are another 16 points that are totally useless to me ♦KQJ, ♣AKQJ. So, I know that Norman has at least 15 points out of the 31 that are missing. What are the odds he has the ones I need for a slam? Well, the slam's going to be a reasonable shot if he has either ace and at least two other cards, but that's surely less than 50%. I don't really see a sensible way to find out what he's got - maybe if he can agree a suit before we get to the 4 level I can try Blackwood, but as it happens, he can't. 

The 49ers at home: Another 16-0 defeat.

Jake Corry was struggling for players for his team in the Edinburgh league, and I was able to rearrange my birthday trip to London to accommodate a trip to Edinburgh to play in the match. We were facing off against the 49ers. This was another strong team. They had 4 out of the 8 players who played in the Camrose for Scotland this year, along with another couple who have been regulars in the international team. I was partnering Jun, the same player I played with on Tuesday. We'd had slightly longer to sort out some system, and were playing 2/1 with transfer responses and transfer Walsh, although I don't think there were many hands where systemic issues had a big impact.

♠♥♦♣

First big hand of the night is a pure bidding problem. With 14 top tricks between the two hands, you'd probably expect an experienced partnership to bid to one of the cold grands on the hand below. As it happens, Paul and Brian at our table won the board comfortably by being the only pair even to bid a small slam... I don't actually recall the exact auction at our table, but it was something like the below - West definitely bid keycard at some point, and then stopped in 6♥  

♠ A K 7 5 4 ♥ 9 ♦ A 9 6    ♣ A Q 6 5

♠ T 8  ♥ A K Q J T 7 6 2  ♦ Q 3 ♣ K

W E 1♠ 2♥  3♣ 3♥  3NT  4♥  4NT  5♠   6♥

The East hand has 8 tricks, plus another one if partner has the ♣A. Really with the East hand you want to figure out a way to get partner to agree hearts, and then roll out blackwood, if you find out he has 3 aces and a king, you can count 13 tricks, and bid it. Problem is that you might end up in 6 with two top losers in one of the pointed suits... I haven't quite some up with a sensible auction to the grand yet, but I'm confident one exists. 

This reminded me of a hand I played a few months ago with Phil Stephens, with a similar story. This time, we bid 7NT with our 14 top tricks, and later found that 6NT would have been enough for 100% of the matchpoints:

♠ A x x x ♥ A x x x ♦ Q x    ♣ A K x

♠ K Q x ♥ x ♦ A K x x x x x x ♣ x x

W E 1♦  1♥ 3♦   4♦  4♠  4NT  5♥  5NT 7♦

Despite theoretically only having 12 points, I felt 2♦ was a bit wet with my hand, as 3N is always going to make opposite something as weak as xxx QJx xx QJx, so re-bid 3♦. With his control-rich 17 count, it was now pretty clear to Phil that we wanted to be in a slam of some sort and it only remained to figure out if there was a suitable grand. Over his 5NT, I didn't feel I had any reasonable call other than 7♦. Although I only have 12 points, I have a lot more tricks that I need to have for my bidding so far. After Phil has shown at least some degree of diamond support, three aces and a king opposite is enough for 7N to be almost cold. 5N in this sort of situation should be something like "do you have anything extra that might be useful in the grand". I only have one bid available below 6♦, so there isn't really room for me to give any more detailed information. It was easy enough from Phil's side of the table to see that any tricks we hand in ♦ were also going to be there in NT, and didn't take long to claim his 14 top tricks. Note that it's just over a year since I played this hand, so it's possible the ♠KQ and the ♠A were in the opposite hands to the ones I have them here, or even that I have some of the suits completely wrong, but the general picture of the auction is about right.

♠♥♦♣

Here's one which Paul played well, but I think we might possibly have done better in the defence. 

♠ x ♥ T 9 x x ♦ A K Q x x  ♣ K x x ♠ A J T x ♥ K x  ♦ T x x  ♣ A x x x * * * * ♠ K x x x ♥ Q x ♦ J x x  ♣ Q J x x ♠ Q 9 x x ♥ A J x x x ♦ 8 x  ♣ 9 x

Paul Jun Brian John W N E S 1♣ 1♦ 1♥(*) - 2♠(**) - - -

I might have doubled 1♥, which was showing ♠s, in which case we might have found our way to the perfectly reasonable 4♥ contract. However, I didn't, and we didn't, so we had to try and defend 2♠. Paul's second round bid showed a weak no trump with exactly four ♠s.

Jun led out three top diamonds, I pitched the ♥2 (encouraging), and he switched to the ♥9. This is where I have my first decision. I can count 5 tricks for the defence - three diamonds, one heart, and one club (Jun must have one of the top 2 club honours, as the ♥9 denies the ♥K, and declarer has shown a weak no trump hand on the bidding). The other can only come from my getting a ruff of some sort. This can only be the third (or 4th) round of clubs. Declarer needs two entries to dummy to finesse spades twice, so I think it's right for me to duck this heart, and deny him an entry in hearts. Paul now played a spade to the king, finessed a spade on the way back, Jun showing out. When declarer now played a club towards dummy, Jun hopped up with the king to play a heart, and it was all over. If Jun doesn't win the first club, declarer cashes the ace and plays a third club. Jun wins, but whatever he plays, Paul can pick up the spades and cash his last club. 

There are a couple of things we might have tried - I could win at trick two and switch to a club, but I don't think this works. Jun again can't afford to win the first round, so Paul can just do exactly the same, and this time has an extra entry to dummy in hearts. Or Jun could try a fourth diamond after cashing AKQ. I think this might actually work. Paul can get away a loser, but I can pitch a club, and now Jun can afford to win the first round of clubs to give me my ruff. Not sure how easy this is to find at the table. I guess my hearts could be KJ, in which case it might be necessary for Jun to switch to a heart now. On the other hand, he does know I have 4 trumps, so the ruff and discard is unlikely to be a great deal of help to declarer, and might well help me to get a trump trick, and it's hardly likely the club king is going to run away. I don't think I would have found this defence, but it's one worth noting.

♠♥♦♣

There were a  few more interesting boards - one on which we missed a small slam in clubs (technically we missed a grand, but the grand was about 13%, so we'll not worry about that), and one shortly after the missed grand slam above where the opponents bid 6♣ which rolled home on a squeeze, and one where we did well to push the opps to 5♠ which, though makeable, was not easy, and eventually went off when dummy's suit broke 3-0. All in all, another enjoyable game, and despite being roundly thrashed (a comfortable 16-0, in which we had by far the worst result of anyone in our team), I feel we actually acquitted ourselves quite well. Paul and Brian just got all of the big boards right, and we got one big board wrong, and that was a good 2000+ points their way. For the rest of the night, things were pretty even. Next week, slightly less bridge (possibly a district pairs qualifier on Wednesday), but hopefully I'll manage not to lose 16-0...

Teams at the Melville

I was in Edinburgh on Tuesday afternoon, for a recruitment fair for work, so I stayed in the evening and played bridge with Martin. Except when I got there, I wasn't playing bridge with Martin. I was playing with Jun, as "practice" for the match we'll be playing on Thursday. We realised after about two board that the system we'd agreed to play was a compromise neither of us was particularly happy with, and switched at half time, so the "practice" wasn't great, but it was a fun evening, and we won by a comfortable margin despite several disasters. I'll try to stick to boards where roughly sensible things were going on, which is something of a limitation...

Jun and I bid to three slams over the course of the night, going down in a fairly reasonable grand on one (it was off when the trump suit didn't break, but I could have made it by finessing RHO for JT8x at trick one... not a play I'm going to find without x-ray vision, and another where I just got over-excited when Jun showed a reasonably good hand, and pushed us to 6♦. Here is the slam that we bid and made. 

♠ A 9 8 7 6 ♥ 9 ♦ K Q J 2   ♣ K 6 5

♠ Q T 2 ♥ A Q 6 3  ♦ A 8 6 4 ♣ A 9

W E 1NT  2♥ 2♠ 3♦ 3♠ 4♣ 4♦ 4♥ 4NT 5♣ 6♠

I was pretty much planning on bidding slam as soon as Jun bid 3♦, I really couldn't have a better hand for what he's shown. I very nearly did just bid it directly over 4♣, but I thought there was still some chance of a grand at that point (it's not that crazy - give Jun the ♠K and it's odds-on, and I don't think he'd have bid differently at that stage). 

I got the ♦9 led, RHO playing the ♦10. I won in hand, to run the ♠Q. I think this is probably best. 1. You don't want to lose the first spade to LHO, as it looks like RHO is ruffing diamonds (the 10 is an odd card to play from 10xx). 2. You need to ruff a club, so you can't afford to lose the second round of spades or they'll draw your last trump at that point. Possibly it's better to take your club ruff before playing any spades? As it happens, the queen held, and the king appeared when I led another spade towards the Ace, so that was game over - they could have the Jack of spades whenever they liked.

Two things I'm not sure I did right on this hand. First, I think I should have bid 6♦, giving Jun the option to play in the 4-4 fit. This is a better contract, as there are times when you have to lose two spade tricks in 6♠, but can ruff the fourth round in 6♦, also, as a general rule 4-4 fits are better than 5-3 fits, or so I've always been told. Second, I've no idea if I actually played the spade suit right - we didn't get as far as that hand in the pub before I had to leave.

♠♥♦♣

Here's another hand I played - this one was flat (!). 

♠ - ♥ J T 9 8 5 3 ♦ 8 5 ♣ A K 9 5 2 ♠ A J 8 5 ♥ Q 4 ♦ A Q 7 6 4 ♣ 6 4 8 13 10 9 ♠ K 9 6 3 ♥ 7 6 ♦ K J T 3 ♣ Q J T ♠ Q T 7 4 2 ♥ A K 2 ♦ 9 2 ♣ 8 7 3

Jun John W N E S - 1♦ 2NT 3♦ 4♥ - - X - - -

After 3♦, I decided I definitely wasn't selling out to 4♦, so I might as well bid 4♥ immediately. That, and there was a pretty good chance it was going to make.

As you can see, the hand pretty much comes down to getting the heart suit right. ♠A was led, ruffed, and I played a heart to the Ace. I then crossed the ♣K, led the ♥8, and starting to think. In the end, I decided that if I needed three rounds of trumps to draw trumps, there were lots of 4-1 club lay-outs in which I wasn't making anyway, and dropped the ♥Q. As Jun pointed out afterwards, there are two reasons I might have decided to play it the other way - first, if hearts are 3-1 and clubs are 4-1, then 5♦ is making anyway, so I don't need to worry as much about those lay-outs. Second, RHO did double 4♥, so might well be placed with the heart length. I'm not sure which is the better play, but my choice was successful, and that was 590 in the in column for... a flat board, as presumably exactly the same thing happened at the other table (I'm guessing they just played "9-ever, 8, never", but I didn't actually ask Martin and Jake what happened).

Another match with Jun on Thursday against fractionally stronger opposition (the 49ers, basically a Scotland all-stars team). I'm sure I'll have more to report then. 

Stirling Away

Last night's match was against Stirling. It's not clear if they're the best team in the league, but their top two pairs featured four recent open internationals, and I think most of their players have represented Scotland in some capacity at some point. We played against Sam Punch and Stephen Peterkin, who comfortably won last year's Camrose trials, and are a good pair. 

Sam and Stephen both seem to pay very slowly, but we got through the boards at approximately the same rate as the other teams. This is because, while they appear to play very slowly, they don't like to either discuss hands during the play, or mess around when it's obvious what's going on. I actually preferred the pace to the pace of a "normal" match, and it gave me much more of a chance to properly re-construct the hidden hands. I'm going to have to start playing more slowly, at least for the first trick or two of a hand...

♠♥♦♣ 

First, a bidding problem Sam faced: 

.

♠ Q J T x x x ♥ A x x x ♦ x ♣ A K

Sam	Norman	Stephen	John
W	N	E	S
	2♦	-	2♥
?

Two diamonds was a multi, very likely a weak 2 in hearts. Question is, do you bid two or three spades? Sam judged that they were too likely to be missing a game if she bid 2, and picked three. Stephen raised with ♠ Kxxx ♥ xx ♦ xx ♣ QTxxx, and it rolled home 11 tricks, losing just a spade and a heart when we somehow failed to cash our diamond trick. After a slightly different auction (weak 2♥ passed round to him) Harry Smith bid 2♠ at the other table, and played there.

Opinion was pretty much evenly split at half-time on whether two or three spade was a better bid - Ian Sime was in the 2♠ camp. There was also some discussion of whether there was a signficant difference between the two auctions. If anything, Harry maybe had more of a reason to bid three rather than 2 spades, as presumably he'd be protecting with weaker hands than those on which Sam can find a direct bid. 

♠♥♦♣

Second, a 4 heart contract I played. This was one of those where I took my time, and actually got it right (I think). At least, I definitely got the ending right. Whether I could have picked a better line altogether is a different question. I've left myself in the South seat.

None Vul.S Deal ♠ J 8 ♥ K 9 8 4 ♦ A 7 2 ♣ A Q T 6 ♠ Q T 7 6 4 2  ♥ 7 3 ♦  K Q ♣ 8 7 3 * * * * ♠ K 5  ♥ Q 6  ♦ T 8 5 4 3 ♣ K J 5 2 ♠  A 9 3 ♥  A J T 5 2 ♦  J 9 6  ♣ 9 4

W N E S - 2♠  X - - - 4♥ - -

Sam led the 6 of spades,  won the king with my ace, and drew trumps in two rounds (I was intending to hook the spade on the way back, but that prove unnecessary when the Queen appeared). I then ran the club 9. This lost to the Jack, and Stephen returned a diamond to Sam's Queen and my ace. I now gave up the spade trick. Sam won, and returned a club.

At this point, I pretty much know Sam has one of the two missing kings, and initially I thought I had to decide which. Either go up with the ace of clubs and take a ruffing finesse against the king, or finesse now. Well, finessing now is unnecessary, as if the club finesse is right, then probably so is the diamond finesse, and I don't need both, so I won the ace, and ruffed a club. Sam followed. At this point (I will confess not before) I realised that it didn't matter which king she had left. I crossed to dummy and played a diamond in this position:

None Vul.N Deal ♠ - ♥ 8 ♦ 7 2 ♣ T ♠ Q T 7  ♥ - ♦ K ♣  * * * * ♠ - ♥ - ♦ T 8 5 ♣ K ♠  - ♥  T 5 ♦  J 6 ♣

W N E S - 2♠  X - - - 4♥ - -

Notice that it doesn't matter if you swap the minor suit kings. I just need to cover the card that east plays, and either that wins the trick, or West is endplayed. 

♠♥♦♣

Finally, another hand I played. Let's pretend it was in 6 diamonds, because that makes the play more interesting.

None Vul. E Deal ♠ A Q 7 ♥ 7 4 2 ♦ K 8 7 4 ♣ A K 4 ♠ K 4  ♥ 9 6 5 3 ♦  J ♣ Q J T 7 3 2  * * * * ♠ J 8 5 2 ♥ Q T 8  ♦ 9 6 3 2 ♣ 9 5 ♠  T 9 6 3 ♥  A K J ♦  A Q T 5 ♣ 8 4

W N E S - 1♦ 3♣  4♣  - 4♥ - 4♠  - 5♦

We managed to miss the slam, because I didn't realise Norman thought 4 clubs was specifically showing a club control, so thought we were missing one. I'm not exactly sure what Norman was hoping for from me. Anyway, let's pretend Norman raised my 5 diamonds to 6. A club lead went to the ace, and I played the king of diamonds (in case I had to finesse later), and the Jack dropped. 

Assuming the heart finesse is right, I have 9 tricks outside spades, so three spade tricks, or two spade tricks and a spade ruff, will make 12. So the question is: how to play that spade suit for one loser? I ran the 10, intending to finesse the queen next. I think this is as good as anything - you're just always losing two spade tricks if East has KJx(x), unless you can manage to engineer some sort of endplay, and this picks up everything else. As it happens, when Sam played the king on the second round, I could just draw trumps and claim.

Despite a resounding 16-0 thrashing, I think that was the most enjoyable match I've played in for a while. I'm not really sure why this is. Sam and Stephen are certainly nice to play against, and they're good players. And, as I said, I really enjoyed the tempo - thinking about the important parts of each hand, claiming as soon as the hand is over, and not messing around in between (messing around saved for the break). I'll be doing my best to enforce/encourage a similar tempo in the matches I play in in future. I might well be playing three this week, so we'll see how it goes..