|
Hand played on |
29th March 2007 |
|
Board number 13 |
Red Section |
|
Dealer |
North |
|
Vulnerability |
Both |
|
Submitted by |
Alaric Cundy |
|
|
North ♠ QT96 ♥ AT6 ♦ KQT3 ♣ 85 |
|
|
|
|||
|
West ♠ AK874 ♥ 876 ♦ 84 ♣ KQT |
|
East ♠ 52 ♥ K953 ♦ J9 ♣ 96432 |
North |
Bidding:
East |
South |
West |
|
|
|
South ♠ J3 ♥ QJ2 ♦ A7652 ♣ AJ7 |
|
|
No x |
No End |
1NT |
2♠ |
|
|
|||||||
Personally, at the given vulnerability, I would have passed the 1NT opener with the West hand, given that I had an obvious opening lead to the contract and given that I could always bid 2♠ later if the opponents rescued to 2♥. As it happens, after a pass from West, North would invite game, and with the 5th diamond, South may accept. Clearly this chain of events actually happened at several tables, and so West would have found him / herself in the potentially even happier situation of being on lead against 3NT rather than 1NT...
Note that after partner's 1NT opening, most players would agree that the double from North is for penalties.
On best defence, NS should take seven tricks when defending 2♠ doubled, but in practice things went slightly awry for us (my fault, from the South hand) and Declarer was let off with a score of -200. Still, from the NS perspective, +200 on what likes a part-score board should be good news...
Not such good news in practice! North's strong spade holding - so important in the defence to 2♠ doubled - was also a crucial holding for those who ventured into 3NT, and in practice, careful Declarer play yields 10 tricks after the initial lead of a spade. However, if the defence starts with the King of clubs followed by a heart switch, then 8 tricks looks like the limit of the hand for NS. That's not an obvious defence to find at the table, though.
The hand was played 11 times, and the traveller revealed 4 successful game attempts, one accurate defence to 2♠ doubled, one missed opportunity for NS when West escaped with one off undoubled, plus 4 occasions when NS made a part-score - so our 2♠ doubled yielded - an exact average!