Hmmm… or maybe I should come out with some half-truths to explain away such idleness:

a. My team in China is in chaos…as the capable lead coordinator has left for some important project.. and thus… all my projects are stuck. As such, there was absolutely no need for sales.
b. Suddenly, my lead coordinator came back.. and he was so capable that he settled most of my 5 cents – 10 cents problem. However, he is spending so much time doing it that there is really no spare capacity left on his side. As such, also no point doing sales.

But what the heck. Idleness is not part of today’s topic. Lets focus on bridge….

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, I was part of the NUSS (blue) team to play at SGCC. I played with Kok Poh… one of the better players on our team… so thought a little harder than usual…. However, somehow, still played pretty badly in 2 hands during the second half of the section. (For the first half, we did not really get much chance to play badly as we were playing against a really weak pair…)

HAND 1

Bidding

Kok Poh lead a small club. Dummy came in small and I took the A of club.

Declarer has probably a 6-4 distribution. On second thoughts…. he might have bid that way even if he had a 5-4-3-1 or 5-4-4-0, afraid of the singleton in Clubs… but that will be another story… It did not occur to me at the bridge table.

Assuming that it was a 6-4 distribution, declarer will have another 3 cards in the side suits. It is either 6-4-1-2 or 6-4-0-3.

Generally people tend to prefer to lead double turns over a three card top or nothing. As such, I felt that partner lead from a doubleton club and placed declarer with a 6-4-0-3 hand. To break the contract, we need another 3 tricks. My A spade will not take a trick in 6-4-0-3 hand, and it does not seem very likely that partner can take 3 tricks from the diamonds and hearts alone. So I thought… the only way we can probably down the contract was to hope partner has a heart stopper and could get a club rough on the 3rd round.

Indeed partner only had 2 tricks in diamond and heart suits. Unfortunately, by returning a club, I gave the opponents a chance to discard his singleton spade in his hand.

Hmmm…. partner ask how come I did not take the A of spade. I think that is quite a hard call to make… especially when u see the K in dummy. And for this hand… any other return would have been fatal. Declarer can easily use his clubs to discard the singleton spade by winning my return.

But of course, if I knew partner had a 3 card club, I will cash A spade… and just hope for 2 winners in hearts and diamonds. What else can I hope for?

HAND 2

Bidding