Nov 26 2008
Hello There
At a local club game, i find myself holding AKT43 AJ QT975 Q.
Partner deals and passes. RHO opens 1N.
“11-14″ her partner announces.
We play Hello, but we have modified it so we can double for penalties against weak NT. I double.
The opponents play together fairly often, but are new to the weak NT system and are not strong players. Most experienced weak notrumpers have well-defined methods to get out of 1N doubled. After i double, everyone passes.
As i’m about to lead, RHO says, “i thought we had stopped playing 11-14 and are playing 15-17.” We call the director and partner is given the chance to change his call given the new information. He doesn’t.
I lead my 4th best spade and dummy hits with
J9 76542 8 98743
Dummy should absolutely bid hearts or clubs, as any experienced weak NT bidder knows, but she claims she thought we would bid.
Declarer puts up the JS and partner wins the Q. Awesome. Partner returns a space and i win the T and cash the AS. On this trick, declarer pitches a diamond. I think it must be advantageous for partner to be on lead, so i lead my 3S to his 8S.
Partner switches to the 2C. Declarer thinks about this and plays the 5 to my Q. I cash the 5th spade, on which partner throws the 2D as declarer throws another diamond. We play upside down signals, so the 2D and declarer’s failure to hold onto diamonds indicates partner has something in that suit. Regardless, i don’t have much choice of what to lead. I lead a low diamond to partner’s K and declarer’s A. She cashes the AC (i pitch the JH) and exits with the KH.
Perforce, i win the AH and cash the QD. When declarer’s JD falls under my Q, i can claim the rest with our side taking 5 spades, 1 heart, 1 club and 4 diamonds, for 11 tricks! +1400 for the good guys. Declarer took her two bullets and that was it. She had 52 KQ98 AJ43 AJ5.
It sure was a fun hand to defend. Partner had two perfect cards for me, of course: the QS and KD.