What Might Have Been

We are in San Diego, playing in the first session of the 2-session regional Mixed Pairs event.  I am sitting South, as dealer.

                ♠ x
                ♥ A K x x x
                ♦ x x x x x
                ♣ x x
♠ K T x x x                    ♠ J x x
♥ x x                          ♥ Q J x x
♦ x                            ♦ Q x
♣ A T 7 4 2                    ♣ K J x x
                ♠ A Q 9 x
                ♥ x x
                ♦ A K J x x
                ♣ Q x
       West   North   East   South
                              1♦
       1♠   Dbl     Rdbl!   1NT!
       Pass   2♣!     Pass    2♦!
       Pass   2NT     Pass    3NT

The redouble showed a 3-card raise for spades without one of the top three honors.  1NT showed 15-17 balanced.  2♣ and 2♦ were XYZ, and is how North shows a (pushy) invitational hand.  With what i thought was a maximum, i accepted.

West leads her fourth best club, the 4.  Rightie wins the King and immediately puts the spade Jack on the table.  Obviously they can set me off the top, but since they didn’t, i suppose i should find a way to make this.  I win the Ace of spades and run off five diamond tricks.  Leftie had the singleton, and pitches three(!) clubs and a heart, while rightie pitches two clubs and a spade.

Well, they’re not going to set me with their long clubs anymore.  I should be able to endplay LHO since she is marked with the spade King and probably has the club Ace for her overcall.

This is a good thought, but i acted too quickly.  After the diamonds, i immediately played a club to Leftie’s now stiff Ace.  The problem is that she still has a heart to exit passively.  Whoops.  Now i can’t stop Rightie from getting in and leading a spade through to give them five tricks (2 clubs, 2 spades, and a heart).

If i had cashed the Ace-King of hearts and THEN threw Leftie in with a club, i would have been home.  This should have been an easy play to find, but i didn’t think it through enough.