27 March 2011

Doubled in 5♠

On the second board of a two board set after giving away a top on the first. You doubled a seemingly ridiculous 5 contract that wasn't. It made 12 tricks when "someone" misdefended. You hold this magnificent selection:

Q T 7
5
A Q 4
A K Q 7 5 4
and partner opens 1! There's not much you want to know about other than the three key cards you're missing, 4NT. 5 from partner showing 1 or 4 is a cold shower. Sadly you sign off in 5 which gets doubled on your left.
The opening lead is a small spade, partner plays small and lefties knave holds. Stomach churning I couldn't look away from the rest of the hand. That's right, LHO doubled holding ♠AKJ and no other tricks. Steaming profusely we drag out the score sheet:
ContractDeclarerResultN/SE/W
6♠xS-2500
6♠xS-2500
5♠S-1100
5N-2200
6♠xS-2500
5♠xS-1200
6♠xS-2500
6♠S-2200
6NTN-3800
6♠xS-2500
That's right, freely bid to 5♠, caught an unlucky double, went down one, 78%.

2 comments:

  1. And partner opened on... ?

    I was thinking you might have run to 5NT bid from your hand, for a top board. But I see 6NT by north goes -3, so partner presumably doesn't have AKQ of hearts and K of diamonds... so I'm guessing he/she opened on something like

    9xxxxx - KQJ - KJxx - void

    Close?

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  2. Partner has one keycard remember. I think the hand was 9xxxx - AKJx - KJxx - void.
    Difficult to fault the opening but you've only got 8-10 tricks in NT depending how things go.

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