The second round tested us a bit more. Vilttiketju could be counted as a pre-tournament favorite. As we were also a strong contestant match promised to be a tough one for both.
Board 9: Unlucky lead makes bad defense correct one
I didn't have much impact on board 9 results with my 2 points. My second best (spade ten) card had a strong influence to the lead.
The lead gave declarer temp and an easy trick. Also raising with club ace made setup clubs easier when declarer has only 2 losers.
Optimal spade lead and club duck would put declarer into a test. Declarer would have only 3♠+1♥+2♦+1♣ before defense has managed to open spades. 3-suit squeeze won't help much because declarer has to discard first or when Juho cashes the last spade.
That leaves declarer with only two winning plays in club. Either play to king and/or duck the second club to the singleton ace. After club to king declarer has better tempo letting him score 3♠+2♥+2♦+1♣. After those 8 tricks it would be trivial to end-play Juho with a spade to give the night trick with diamond.
Team mates: 2♦W -100
Result: -630 (-12; -7.4)
Possible result: -600 / +100 (-12 / 0)
Total: -33 / +11
Board 12: Defensive error didn't matter to trick totals
Twelfth deal provide again some challenges to solve. East-West misjudged our playing strength and pre-empted us in uncontested auction. But when opponents are making mistakes defense has to be extra wakeup to score on the mistakes.
The start of hand was good for defense setting up heart ruff. I had a good plan that involved keeping trump control, getting heart ruff and pulling trumps to limit declarers tricks. Plan was executed flawlessly up until I had my heart ruff.
After the heart ruff my thinking changes that I should prevent declarer from setting up spades with club continuation. But that is hopeless idea when I held too many and too good spot cards to interfere spade cashing or cross ruff.
That leaves only possible defense to pull trumps and hope that declarer doesn't have enough spade tricks to score rest. But I got away in the live deal because there was nothing that would have mattered in the ending.
Team mates: 3♦E -50
Result: +100 (+2; 0)
No effect on result.
Total: -33 / +11
Board 14: Right defense needed declarer to help
Again I'm picking up a hand which I'm defending. It starts to look like defending has most option for potentially improved score.
The singleton trump lead felt good one when dummy game down. Even tough declarer wouldn't have chance to cross-ruff from lead unless he had club void. Declarer soon confirmed that there was no cross-ruff chance by playing club to trick two.
At this point I failed to count declarer's tricks. I should count them already in trick 3 because I had enough information for complete count. Too bad I failed to notice that my information was enough for the count.
If I would have counted the tricks it would have been clear that I have to play declarer for 5 card diamond only. With 6 cards diamonds declarer can always score 9 trumps and 2 black tricks or one black and HA. That leaves following possible hands for declarer.
In left variant declarer can have 2 major aces, 3 heart ruffs, 5 trumps and last trick with club jack. But I can prevent spade entry to clubs by playing spades now.
While in right variant declarer can score only one major trick, 3 heart ruffs, 5 trumps and one club totaling 10 tricks. Playing spade king back would give declarer a spade trick but that would be only exchange for a club trick. That makes spade king shift work in either hand that felt most likely for the biding
But failing to count the tricks didn't prevent me from playing spade king. Based on points shown and promised I made mental images where partner would either hold heart ace or spade queen. That made spade continuation stand out as option killing dummy entry and possible creating entry to Juho's hand for trump play.
But actual deal where Juho had sub-minimum values for his shape there was no killing defense. But my spade king play still only exchanged the club trick for the spade queen trick. But bonus came when declarer erred to discard a losing heart for club queen.
Too bad our team mates went down in same contract but doubled.
Team mates: 5♦XE -100
Result: +50 (-2; +2.8)
Total: -33 / +21
Board 16: Defense that played for the declarer
Finally it is time for part-score defending. I think that defending part-scores accurately is probably the hardest thing to do in bridge table. Of course there is large spectrum in the level of challenge.
I was having my first problem already in trick 3. I looked at club Q worried because it was a possible slow trick for declarer. That made me return a diamond hoping that we would manage to setup our red suit winners before declarer would have setup club queen for a discard.
After declarer had pulled trumps hand had gained a surprising twist. If declarer was 3-2-4-4 he would have tried for a heart ruff. If he was 3-3-4-3 it should be very unlikely that jump would have happened. That leaves declarer only 3-4-4-2 as possible shape. With that shape it is important to setup our club trick before declarer has enough tricks to discard club from dummy.
Too bad I failed figure the shape out in the table so I still had illusion that club shift wouldn't gain anything. I decided to discourage club that most likely influenced Juho to choose the wrong defense.
Of course Juho could have solved declarer's probable shape and find the club shift. But making small heart shift doomed the defense. Heart queen would be likely to be ducked which would still leave a chance for Juho to wakeup and make club shift. My king-jack-ten combination forcing me to play a high heart under queen would be likely wakeup call.
Team mates: 2♠E +110
Result: -140 (-1; -2.2)
Possible result: +100 (+5)
Total: -39 / +21
Match results
We had a bit worse result than we should have made in our table. That should translate to an even match or slight lose. But our team mates generate a testimony for their top-bottom results from whole weekend. They managed to fit 3 disasters to a single match.
Our combined effort to score badly was rewarded with 22 IMPs lose that translates to only 8 victory points. We still have barely over average score with 33 VPs but there is no extra points to waste.
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