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.