A week of much bridge, Part 1. Phoenix Away

As I'm sure about 90% of the readership of this blog knows, I played in Peebles last weekend. Martin Stephens arranged for a group of approximately 8 of us (there was much argument over the exact number, as there was some chopping and changing over the course of the weekend, and we picked up an extra one on Saturday night) to make up a couple of teams for the main teams competition and partner off for the pairs. We all stayed in a house in Peebles, and it was one of the most enjoyable weekends of bridge I've had in a long time (probably ever). It didn't hurt that I also had a very successful weekend - 2nd in the pre-Congress teams, and then 5th and 7th in the Congress Pairs and Teams respectively. I intend to post something about each of the 6 sessions that were played over the weekend, but I'll probably spread them out over the next couple weeks, as I'm not going to be playing much over the holidays, so a. I have nothing much better to do than write bridge blogs and b. I won't have anything else to write about if I use up all of that material.

I'm going to start with a hand from the match which I played on Wednesday night, before I went to Peebles (and then I'll finish the series with one I played on the Tuesday night - that's 5 days bridge in 7 days. Luckily I have a very tolerant girlfriend!)

This is mostly a hand where the defence did really badly, but it's also a hand where I'm quite happy with my declarer play, as it's the first time I've ever successfully achieved a trump endplay (at least, deliberately):

Dealer: N Vul: NS	North ♠ QJT84 ♥ ♦ A82 ♣ KT954
West ♠ 9653 ♥ A ♦ KQ96 ♣ AJ62		East ♠ A ♥ KJ98743 ♦ T75 ♣ 73
	South ♠ K74 ♥ QT652 ♦ J43 ♣ Q8
Bidding:	W N E S - 3♥ - 4♥ - - X - - -	HTML Bridge Hand Layout Creator

South led the club Queen, and I decided that I'd better see exactly how bad the bad news was in trumps. I led the ♥A, and North showed out. At this point, things are pretty hopeless. North is going to get in, and he's going to play another round of clubs, and then a third round of clubs, and South's going to ruff that, and South will still have a trump trick left. When all is lost however, you still have the option of relying on the defence to help you out. Unfortunately dummy doesn't yet have any cards I can ruff, so I can't start shortening my trumps yet. However, I played a ♠ to the A, and then a diamond to the K. North now came to my rescue with, I think, the only play to let the contract through. He won the ♦K, and switched to a spade. He later said he was worried that I was the one with a singleton club, this would mean his partner chose to lead the Q from ♣Q83, which I guess is not impossible, but not exactly textbook. I'm now home free. I ruff the spade, finesse the ♦9 (there's no way I can make this if I have another diamond to lose), and ruff another spade. Now a diamond to the K, and we're left with this: 

Dealer: N Vul: NS	North ♠ QJ ♥ ♦ ♣ KT9
West ♠ 9 ♥ ♦ 6 ♣ J62		East ♠ ♥ KJ98 ♦ ♣ 7
	South ♠ ♥ QT65 ♦ ♣ 8
Bidding:	W N E S - 3♥ - 4♥ - - X - - -	HTML Bridge Hand Layout Creator

When I play the last ♦, pitching my ♣, south has two choices. He can let it win, in which case I can just play my trumps from the top, as I'm never going to lose more than 2 trump tricks, or he can ruff. If he chooses the latter, he still only manages two trump tricks (even with his QTx over my KJ98), as whatever he plays back, he'll be thrown in with the next round, to lead away from the Q.

4HX bid and made. We still got soundly thrashed in the match, and our team is hovering somewhere around the bottom of the league (Phoenix were firmly at the bottom before this match). We've still not played GUU, St. Mungo or Gilmorehill in the league, who I think are the big three teams, so I imagine things are going to be pretty close come the end of the season.

PS - just found this website which generated the hands in this post. Seems much easier than what I've been doing in the past - anyone else have any alternative solutions? 

♠♥♦♣