Round 7. Against pair2, unseeded pair.
Board 17. Love all. Dealer N
4
J63
T9754
J732
AQ986 KJ532
AT 98
Q83 AKJ2
AT8 KQ
T7
KT7542
6
9654
This is a hand featured in the daily bulletin where Barry Rigal seemed to be
inconclusive about how to get to 7N. Here's our effort:
W E
1S
2N(1) 3N
4C 4D
4H 4N
5D 5H
5N 7S
P
2N is Jacoby and 3N shows a balanced maximum. Some cuebids follow and I asked
key cards. 5H asked SQ and 5N shows that and no side K.
My jumping to the 7S was rough. At the table it wasn't quite clear to me what
6D would mean and I didn't want Fred to hesitate to bar me from bidding grand.
On reflection there's no abmiguity in the meaning:
6D: ask pd to bid 7S with 3rd round D control, either Dxx or DQxx. Or 7N with
QJx.
7D: ask pd to bid 7N with Q of D.
Bidding to 7S worths 38.5/51, rather surprisingly. Left to our own devices,
it's hard to imagine how one can miss this grand, so the only explanation is
some South might chose to preempt in H, and some bidding spaces are taken away
and maybe EW did not have space to find out the magic fit.

Board 18. NS vul, Dealer E.
AK8532
K9
T32
73
T976 J4
Q3 JT62
KQJ75 A986
54 AKT
Q
A8754
4
QJ9862
N E S W
1D P 1S
P 1N P 2D
P P 2H 3D
P P P
Against my 3D, South led the CQ, and I won the A. I played 3 rounds of trump
ending in dummy and led the H3 to my J. Can you blame North not to put up the
HK? Now when South won the A, he's concerned that I've set up the H for C
discard so he led another C. That was exactly what I was trying to talk South
into, and now I pitched the H from dummy. When I can ruff out the HK, I had 10
tricks and 130 for 36.5/51.
The root problem, of course, is that NS wasn't too clear on the 1st C played.
When a Q is led and dummy had no K, the primary signal should still be
attitude. That would avoid the NS disaster. On the other hand, North was not
alert enough, since I've shown CAK, DA, there's no room for me to have both
HAJ, so rising with the HK has to be the right play -- if I had HA, given
south's known H suit, wouldn't I play a low H to Q hoping to slip by?