Another long weekend, another bridge tournament. This time in Bournemouth where the groupetto and I decided to go for the Monday teams event. We all piled excitedly into the car, buckets and spades at the ready, and hurtled down the M3 full of optimism and bonhomie. Needless to say that didn’t last long. The arguments over system started after about ten minutes and I went straight to sleep. We didn’t win but were in contention, which is always exciting.
Today’s hand concerns honour doubleton combinations, and the more experienced you are the more likely you are to know when to play the honour early to avoid getting endplayed. I am certainly super-wary near the end of the game, when I am dreading getting thrown in and looking a total muppet. Again. But would you have got it right at trick three?
My partner led a Diamond, which I won and returned another diamond. Declarer then cashed the Ace of Hearts and I …played low. Declarer now let me hold the ♥Q and I started to feel a bit queasy. I couldn’t give a ruff and sluff so guessed on exiting with the ♣J. Declarer won in hand, drew the last trump and had no problem developing a Club trick to dispose of his Spade loser.
Of course, declarer can always make his contract BUT — if I unblock the ♥Q under the Ace, he has to guess which black suit to set up for a discard in the other one. And they don’t always guess right. Grrrrrrrrrrrr!
Simon Cope’s team won (he also won the Pairs). A very impressive result.
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