The Portland Bowl 2006
Third or Fourth?
So, it was to be another year of competing in the 3rd-4th place playoff (after losing the semi-final to Durham), and to make matters worse Cambridge A had lost to Cambridge B in the other semi-final, meaning that we had a tougher match than we would have done if we had gotten to the final. It took me three boards to make my first contract—a rather uninspiring 1NT with 7 tricks on the normal lead (and 7 cashing tricks for defense if they find an unusual lead). Our main gain of the set happened when Daniel went off in a 4
contract on two wrong guesses, while André guessed right and made the contract. Our main loss was when I took a phantom sacrifice over a 4
contract. A few partscore swings mostly in our favour left it:
First stanza: 21–9 to Trinity
| Board 17 North deals |
Q 6 2
K T 9 2
 9 7 4
 K 6 4 | |
|
9 3
A 7 6
Q J T 2
Q 7 3 2 | 
|
J
Q J 8 4 3
6 5 3
A J 9 8 |
|
A K T 8 7 5 4
5
A K 8
T 5 |
West Daniel 3 all pass | North Toby pass pass | East Hugo 2 pass | South Teymur dbl 4 |
I'm not sure exactly what Teymur's bidding shows, but I decided that with no aces, I shouldn't raise it. On this hand, Teymur should just bid 4
immediately to show a strong single-suited hand with spades. Anyway, Daniel led the 6, and Teymur, not reading this as an underlead of the ace, played the nine. He now couldn't avoid two club losers and a diamond loser, for one down.
We regained 9 IMPs on this board:
| Board 21 North deals |
K 7 2
K 7 6
K J 9
Q J 8 5 | |
|
9
Q J 8 5 3
A T 7 6 4 2
3 | 
|
J 8 6 4
T 9 4
3
A 9 7 4 2 |
|
A Q T 5 4
A 2
Q 8 5
K T 6 |
West Daniel dbl pass | North Toby 1NT 2 ²pass | East Hugo pass pass dbl | South Teymur 2 ¹4 all pass |
| ¹ transfer to spades. ² 3-card support. | |||
4
can be beaten two tricks if defense find all their ruffs, but on the normal heart lead it made with an overtrick for +990.
We gained 12 IMPs from a fortunate penalty card:
| Board 24 West deals |
K
T 3
A 9 5 4
A K J 7 6 5 | |
|
6 5 4
A K J 4
K Q J 6 2
8 |
|
A Q T 9 8 3
9 8 6 2
8 7 3
— |
|
J 7 2
Q 7 5
T
Q T 9 4 3 2 |
West Daniel 1 dbl | North Toby 2 all pass | East Hugo 2
| South Teymur 5
|
Hugo led the beer card. I won my ace, drew the trump, and led a diamond. Hugo (presumably expecting me to need to draw more trumps) discarded another spade. He noticed the revoke in time to prevent it's being established, but the low spade was now a major penalty card, so I was able to make my
K and the contract.
In the third stanza, we lost 13 IMPs when our reasonable slam went off on a bad trump break, then we regained 7 by bidding the thin game on this board:
| Board 27 South deals |
K Q 5
T 3
A T 7 5 2
K J T | |
|
9 4 2
A 9 7 2
Q J 9 8
3 2 |
|
A 6 3
K Q J 6
6 4 3
8 6 4 |
|
J T 8 7
8 5 4
K
A Q 9 7 5 |
West Daniel pass pass pass | North Toby 2 º2NT² 4
| East Hugo pass pass all pass | South Teymur 2 2 ¹3NT³ |
| º feature enquiry.
¹ good weak two with a spade feature. ² asks if spades is a genuine (ie 4-card) suit. ³ 4=2=2=5 distribution. | |||
anyway, I decided I might as well enquire, just in case 4 was making. The 2 bid could be based on a spade guard or a 4-card suit (With some partners I swap the meanings of 2 and 2 here, so the former shows a spade feature and the latter a heart feature. This has the effect of making the weaker hand dummy more often). Teymur's systemic response to 2NT is 3 showing a diamond singleton, but he hadn't read that part of the convention card in enough detail. Anyway, since I wasn't interested in slam, it didn't matter.
4
is always making with spades 3–3 and clubs 3–2. On the diamond lead, it
also makes if spades are 4–2 with a doubleton ace.
On the next board, we lost 14 IMPs when Teymur made the wrong lead against a slam:
| Board 28 West deals | 6 5 4
J 7 4 3
Q 5
Q J 7 5 | |
|
J
A Q 5
A T 6 2
A K T 9 4 |
|
A Q 8
K T 9 8 2
K 7 4 3
8 |
|
K T 9 7 3 2
6
J 9 8
6 3 2 |
West Daniel 1 2 3 5 ³
| North Toby pass pass pass pass | East Hugo 1 2 ¹4NT² 6
| South Teymur pass pass pass all pass |
| ¹ fourth suit forcing.
² RKCB. ³ 0 or 3 keycards. | |||
Teymur now has a tricky lead. As clubs and diamonds were bid by West, I might try one of those, hoping that partner has a well-placed honour. I'd probably lead a diamond, hoping that West's diamond suit isn't particularly good. Unfortunately, Teymur decided to lead a spade. It's not clear that leading away from a king in dummy's known singleton (Daniel has shown 4+ diamonds and 5+ clubs—as well as extra strength—by reversing, and then shown 3 hearts in response to FSF) is a good idea; there's not much to gain, but your king is going to be offside, so you are likely to give away a trick in the suit. This was the only lead—other than the absurd
J—that allowed the contract to make, since if Hugo takes a ruff in dummy he can no longer pick up that trump position.
We got some IMPs back when John and David bid a slam on board 30.
This left us 17 ahead going into the last stanza. We lost 4 through over-competing on the first board. Fortunately, we gained 13 when opponents chose the wrong game on the fourth. That would have been sufficient to win, but David & Andre took an 800 penalty on a part-score board to seal the victory.
Here's a board from the last set where my accurate defense went unrewarded (except for the Kudos I got from Teymur for getting it right [the Kudos is the SI unit of respect, equal to the gain from throwing a ball of paper into the bin from the other side of the DPMMS common room in the presence of Simon Wadsley – Ed]):
| Board 7 South deals |
T 9 6 4
Q 8 4
Q 8 6 3 2
2 | |
|
8 7 5 2
J T 5 2
T 7
Q 9 7 | 
|
A Q 3
A 9 3
K 5
A K J T 4 |
|
K J
K 7 6
A J 9 4
8 6 5 3 |
West Alex pass | North Toby pass | East Elizabeth 2NT | South Teymur 2 all pass |
Teymur led the
4 and the beer card was played from dummy. Reasoning that Teymur
could have something like AJ94 or KJ94, when playing the queen would block the suit¹, I covered with the 8. Sadly, this was completely irrelevant, as Elizabeth could simply cash eight top tricks to make her contract. Oh well, next time this defense comes up, maybe I'll defeat the contract.
¹ Of course, if Teymur's lead is from KJ54 or AK54, playing the 8 will give declarer a cheap trick, but KJ54 is a less appealing holding to lead from, and with AK54, Teymur might have cashed the Ace to see my (reverse) attitude signal in time to switch if that should prove necessary, so I think it was more likely that my play would work.
Trinity 99–71 Cambridge
Another 3rd place to Trinity!!!!!!