Santa Rosa Sectional Team Game

Reading Chris Barrere's description of his national win of the Senior Swiss, and his obvious enthusiasm for the hands, reminded me that I had some fun hands last weekend at the Santa Rosa sectional team game! :-)

I played with Sara Rothmuller and our teammates were Kathy Venton and Dave Pankratz.

Match 1: We lost when the opponents bid to a bad slam off two cashing aces and our teammates were put in the unenviable position of guessing which suit to lead after winning the first ace.

Match 2: We had a good auction when partner opened 1♠ and I held this hand:

♠	Kx
♥	Void
♦	AQJ109xxx
♣	xxx

I bid 2♦, she rebid 2♥, I rebid 3♦ and she rebid 3♠. She was probably 6-4. I jumped to 5♦. (What do you call an 8-card suit?.......TRUMP!)

She thought for a minute and raised me to 6♦.

♠AQJ10xx
♥AKxx
♦ x
♣Ax

♠Kx
♥Void
♦AQJ109xxx
♣ xxx

I won the K♣ lead and pitched my remaining clubs on the ace and king of hearts. I then gave up a diamond and claimed. We won an improbable 17 IMPs as the opponents were in 6NT.

We also bid and made a vulnerable game for 11 IMPs which the opponents failed to bid. Then came this hand:

♠Axx
♥Q
♦ Ax
♣KQ10xxxx

I opened 1♣, LHO overcalled 1♠ and pard made a negative double.  Looking at my 5-loser hand I decided to jump to 3♣. Partner bid 3♠ (as I was hoping) and I bid 3NT.

I received the K♠ lead and saw the following:

♠xxx
♥Axxxx
♦ KJxx
♣ x

♠Axx
♥Q
♦ Ax
♣KQ10xxxx

I would have been happier if partner had a couple of clubs, but I had to make the best of what I had.   I ducked the first spade and won the second. Clearly I needed to bring in the clubs to come close to enough tricks. Also my RHO (who was presumably out of spades) needed to have the A♣! The red suits were mostly important as entries and I needed to retain the A♦ in my hand to run the clubs if I were lucky enough to set them up.

So I started by leading a diamond to the king and returning a club from the board. I played the K♣ and it held! Now could I smother the J♣ to set up the suit?! I decided that since LHO had more spades than RHO, perhaps she had fewer clubs. After a few minutes of pondering I laid down the Q♣ and was delighted to see the J♣ played by LHO! Now I was in control.

RHO returned a heart after winning the A♣, which I won on the board. I returned to my hand with the A♦ and ran the clubs. Plus 630 was worth another 11 IMPs. We blitzed the match.

Stay tuned...

See you at the table!