Posted 2013-November-06, 10:44
West has no business doubling 3♣. He has terrible shape and no right to expect partner to hold a club trick...his double was pure penalty in standard methods, and he is looking at 2 tricks and a partner who has shown a minimum hand with long hearts. The auction strongly suggests that S has a stiff heart, so where are the tricks if partner holds say 3=6=3=1 with Qxx AKQxxx xxx x, which is consistent with the bidding?
He has a perfectly good natural 3♥ call.
Now, would or should that get East to bid game? I doubt it: that club K looks like wasted values on offence.
This seems to me to be another hand where really there is no blame. There was what I think was a bad call: the double. There was also what I think was another questionable call: 3♥. However, I think that better bidding would have reached the same spot.
As for the play being 'tricky' on a spade lead, that's not the word I would use. Lucky is more like it: how are you playing trump? A first round hook to guard against a 4-0 break, losing to the stiff Q offside, or one top honour, then to dummy in clubs and hook, or play for the drop? I'd go for the middle, since clubs are marked as 4=4, and spades probably 4=3, and if N held 4=4 minors, he might well bid 2♦ or (if pass wasn't penalty) pass. So I'd read N as 3=3=3=4.
Btw, on some layouts the opps might be playing 3 rounds of diamonds, ruffing in, and then leading a spade, and now the play is even more problematic unless the heart Q drops on the first round of trump. However, the auction almost rules that out.
A hint: everyone, world champion on down to beginner, gets bad results, such as missing a good contract. It is a basic mistake to assume that every time this happens, somebody did something wrong. Show me a system and style that never gets it 'wrong', and I will quit the game, since half of the challenge will have gone out of the game (assuming I was capable of remembering that method).
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari