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: 

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♠ 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. 

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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..