Foxx

Well, if the distribution is as suggested by pclayton and the early play, one could presume that your teammates, holding the E/W cards, got into the stratosphere on the ghastly misfit, and got blasted.....

I very strongly agree.

Getting out with a passive spade looks OK. Declarer doesn't have any more tricks that need to be set up, so establishing diamonds isn't necessary. If partner played the ♦K he would be giving away a finesse if declarer had ♦AQJ.

So your partner misbid and miscarded you. Move on.

Here's what I'm wondering: What the devil are they bidding and doubling on? I can't help but think East has a minimum hand and lot of spades (say seven), and maybe doubling on three (or four) clubs to the Q. I'd win the ♦A in hand, cash one top trump, win the ♥AK and try for two heart ruffs in hand to lose a diamond and a club. Ducking the ♦Q lead is tempting, planning to cash ♣AK and ruff one heart in hand (throwing the rest on the diamonds) but too likely to blow up spectacularly when East has a singleton diamond.

Why isn't 1♠ an option? I voted pass but I had just woken up from a nap and had miscounted the points! I somehow counted 11... I just counted them again, and got 12... and now I see that 13 are there. I open all 13 HCP hands regards of circumstance, so I would now have to say that 1♠ would be my choice. Pass and 1♥ are still a very close second and third.

OK, it is now time to reveal the answer key, which, at the table, I was regretfully not privy to: [hv=d=n&v=b&n=skxxh8dak8xckqjxx&w=sq8xxhqjxdqxxxc10x&e=saj10xxha9xxdjca9x&s=s9hk10xxxd10976c832]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] My ♦10 return was ducked by dummy and partner and ruffed. Declarer now ruffed the ♣9 in dummy (yes, partner had played the ♣Q at trick one from KQJ, apparently to conceal a high card from declarer. It didn't matter on this hand), ran the ♠Q and then went on with a spade to the ♠J to repeat the finesse...... Judging from the majority of your comments, I probably should have worked out to return a heart at the table. But that's why I had 18 masterpoints coming in to this event, and why I still do. This thread let me learn a lot of things about bridge on the front line. Thanks everyone.

This hand turned up last Sunday in a sectional in San Anselmo, and started a slide that would ultimately put our team out of the top three places in our bracket in an eight-team Swiss round robin. [hv=d=n&v=b&w=sq8xxhqjxdqxxxc10x&s=s9hk10xxxd10976c832]266|200|Scoring: IMP[/hv] Partner the dealer opens 1♣, and the bidding goes 1♣ - 1♠ - pass - 2♠ - pass - 4♠ - pass all around. You lead the ♣2 to partner's ♣Q and declarer's ♣A and declarer returns a small club to dummy's ♣10 and partner's ♣K. Partner leads the ♦K as declarer follows with the ♦J, then switches to the ♥8 as declarer plays low and you win the ♥K. NOW, do you try to score partner's other high diamond, or do you do something else?

Why isn't Chicago scoring clickable when starting a new table?

I noticed a couple of minor bugs in the software while playing today: * When you make an alert including a "&" character it doesn't show up there. Maybe other characters have this problem too. * When you look at the Bridge Movie in the Partnership Bidding Area the auction is sometimes garbled. Thanks