HCL Pairs Finals – a sorry tale of lost opportunities, poor decisions and more.. – morning session
Next poor decision was not long in coming. Right in the next round you open 2♣ (natural suit, 11-16) in 3rd seat and see the opponents bid a heart game.
You lead your 3rd best spade and see this dummy. Declarer puts up the queen, and plays a heart to ace, king and another which you win with queen, partner following with 6,4,Jack. Dummy discards a spade.
it seems clear that partner has the ♠ J, and so you may want to continue ♠ in the hope of setting up a trick. But wait a moment, what if declarer has the ♦ K. In that case declarer wd have 4 ♥ , 2♠ and 6 ♦ tricks – and your ♣ A would evaporate. Even if partner has ♦ K, it can’t be wrong to cash your ♣ A before continuing spade. This will hurt only if partner has four clubs and ♣ K sets up a discard for declarer. Partner might have given you a weakish raise in clubs with a four carder.
Be that as it may, partner failed to cash his ♣ A, and that was enough to convert a near top to a near bottom , majority of the field playing in 3N and scoring 11 tricks.
On the last board (Board 1) why didn’t North double the multi 2D? I suppose you play the double as values, with generally 3-3 + in the majors.
He can safely stay out of the auction after that, having announced his values.
I suspect his double of 3H was for penalties.
He missed doubling 2d, which is what he should be doing. Now when he heard 3H he got worried about losing a partial. It wasn’t for penalty..