The deuce is loose

The Tunica Regional Bridge Tournament is being played this week at Sam's Town Casino (see image above). I plan to play Friday and Sunday; Saturday is still up in the air.

The District Qualifier for the North American Pairs is Sunday, and my partner is Richard. About a month ago I looked at the calendar and noticed that on Sunday it said Yom Kippur. I e-mailed Richard in a state of panic - would he be able to play? He said it didn't start until Sundown, and we'd be finished in plenty of time. Good thing it was an e-mail -- he was probably laughing at me.

I haven't played much lately, so to knock some of the rust off, I played online several times this week. This deal was the last board of an OKbridge mini-tournament on Wednesday:

                 ♠ A 7
                 ♥ Q J 10 7 5
                 ♦ 5 2 
                 ♣ K 10 7 6
♠ K 3 2                     ♠ 10 6 5
♥ 9                         ♥ A K 8 6 4
♦ K 10 8 7 4                ♦ Q 9
♣ 9 5 4 3                   ♣ Q J 8
                ♠ Q J 9 8 4
                ♥ 3 2
                ♦ A J 6 3
                ♣ A 2

The bidding went Pass Pass to East who opened 1♥. I overcalled 1♠ and it passed out. Would you pass with North's hand? I could be fairly strong and still just bid 1♠, so maybe 1NT would have been better. Good thing my partner didn't do that, however, because then there would be no story.

West led the ♥9, I played the 10 from dummy, East won the king, and I dropped the 3. East couldn't tell who the singleton, so shifted to the ♦Q. I ducked, and West encouraged. He continued with the 9♦, and I won the ace.

It looked more likely that East had the ♠K, so I led to the ♠A and continued with another. West won, cashed the ♦K and led the ♦7 for East to ruff. The 10, suit preference, would have been better because he could ruff a heart. Poor East still didn't know who had the ♥2. You might say he couldn't deduce the deuce. On second thought, let's don't go there. So, East exited with the ♣Q, I won the ace, and this was the position:

                ♠ ---
                ♥ Q J 7
                ♦ --- 
                ♣ K 10
♠ 3                         ♠ ---
♥ ---                       ♥ A 8 6
♦ 10                        ♦ ---
♣ 9 5 4                     ♣ J 8
                ♠ J 9 8
                ♥ 2
                ♦ ---
                ♣ 2

When I ran my spades, East was caught in a squeeze between the round suits. In practice, I discarded dummy's hearts saving ♣K 10. East discarded all his hearts (to guard clubs), and at trick 12, my ♥2 won the trick -- making an overtrick for plus 110.

Anybody can take a trick with a 3. I took a trick with a 2 for maximum style points. It's amazing what little things please a bridge player.

For this, we gained 1.12 IMPs, and you can see all the scores here.