AJ876432 — Q AJ52

RHO opens 1. I like to play that 4 is Namyats for one of the majors here, but partner would not have any idea what I was doing. In any case, at this vulnerability, I don't want to wave a red flag in front of the opponents, so I simply bid 1. LHO bids 2, partner raises to 2, and RHO skip bids to 4. If the opponents have all their stuff in the red suits, it looks like partner may have black stuff, in which case, we could easily have a slam. I could bid 5 as a slam try or just bid 6, but is that a good idea? I figure we can make 11 or 12 tricks in spades, and they can make 11 or 12 tricks in hearts. If they think we bid 6 with any degree of confidence, they'll bid 7. +680 will be a much better score than +100 or +300, so my real goal isn't to find a slam, but to buy the hand in spades below the seven level. Hmmm...even 7 might not be ridiculous. Give partner king-fourth of spades and king fifth of clubs, and on a heart lead, we might make a grand slam. Still, since I don't plan to bid a grand, I want to buy the hand, so I shall walk the dog.

I study my hand for the required ten seconds, and bid only 4. LHO takes perhaps a millisecond and bids 5. If we had been bidding orally, he'd've belted it out. Partner and RHO pass, and I take about 3 seconds and bid 5. I think one ought always pause a bit before acting in a high-level auction, so I pause here to try and maintain an even tempo. LHO thinks this time for maybe five seconds, and bids 6. Again, this is passed to me, and after the requisite three or four seconds, I bid 6. LHO has much more of a problem this time, and after 30 seconds he doubles, ending the auction.

The opening lead is the K, and partner remarks, "you are going to like my hand," as he lays down the dummy.

	K1095 85 J85 K943
	AJ876432 — Q AJ52

RHO	Me	LHO	CHO
1	1	2	2
4	4	5	Pass
Pass	5	6	Pass
Pass	6	Double	All Pass

6

6

5

If RHO is 1453, I'd like to avoid losing to a doubleton Q offside. If I strip the majors and play a diamond, RHO might be good enough to realize that I'm 4-4 in clubs and that a ruff and discard won't help me. Oddly, in this case it will, because I can then show-up squeeze him in the minors. So I ruff the first trick, cross to the K, and ruff another heart. I might as well lead a diamond from dummy; RHO's tempo may tell me he does not have both diamond honors. Or he may simply duck a diamond if he has only one of them, which may be good for me.

I cross to a high trump, and play a small diamond. RHO, without much thought, wins the K. So he has both honors. I'm hoping he now plays a heart, but after a fair bit of thought, he tries cashing another diamond honor. I ruff and run all the trumps but one. RHO pitches two diamonds. So there's no reason to continue with the last trump. I lead to the K. LHO plays the ten on this, not that it matters much. When I cash the J, RHO shows out, so he's marked with four clubs. I can take the club finesse with confidence. +1660.

It turned out that RHO had 1444 shape. If he had exited a club, I would have won the J and squeezed him in the minors to make twelve tricks. Since I was pretty sure that he had at least three clubs and quite possibly four, that was the play I was intending. On the other hand, in that case, I would have gone down if clubs were 3-2 with the queen offside and the ten on my right, whereas playing a low club then would ensure the contract. Perhaps I ought to have left RHO with a heart exit so that I didn't have to make this guess, but I was really hoping for a "useless" ruff and discard so that I didn't have to guess clubs at all. I think a heart return was much more likely than a club return, so against these folks, my line was probably best.