Thursday, October 4, 2018

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!












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