Round 12
Board 11. Love all. Dealer S.
9
K843
AKQ93
J93
AKQ86 T74
AQ752 6
J8 T7654
7 Q865
J532
JT9
2
AKT42
N E S W
p 1S
x 2S 3C 3H
p 3S p p
p
Fred's 3H was a game try. Despite I can offer some help in H, my 3 trumps and
lack of any value forbidded me from taking the invitation.
North led a top D and switched to the trump, 9, T, J, A. Fred cashed HA and
ruffed a H. He then led a D up to his J, and North's Q. And South discarded a
H. North played the CJ, ducked all around and continued with C9. Fred ruffed
and he ruffed another H. When the trump did not break, he did not have the
timing to enjoy the 5th H. He got 7 trumps and the HA for -50 and 30.5/51.

Board 12. NS vul. Dealer W.
A5
AKQJ542
5
T63
KQ8763 JT94
98 3
AQT9 K8762
K J98
2
T76
J43
AQ7542
N E S W
1S
2H 3S 4H 4S
5H p p p

My gentle raise to 3S was obviously an underbid (in terms of level only). As
the high level competition is forseeable, what I'd really want to play is to
bid a "weak fit showing jump": bid S and D together to help later decisions.
This is, however, not available -- and I don't know who really plays that --
my philosophy is in S suit, one can bid slower as you have the master suit.
But this strategy only works best against inferior opponents as you expect to
judge better than them on equal levels. Perhaps opponent's clueless defense on
last hand influenced me.
The same principle -- show your second suit earlier -- applies to opponents.
But South chose to just bid his H which basically won them the board. In my
dictionary South's C suit was not shy of an introduction, and in case you end
in defense, you might want pd to lead C, not H. But if South bid 4C, Fred
would have an easy 4D bid and we will always save on 5 level.
Now that Fred was deprived of space to bid D, when the 5H came to me, I had an
impossible problem to solve, and I started to regret my earlier action. In
IMPs it's a non issue since this would be insurance time. In matchpoints
there's less merits of buying insurance. It looked as if we had a 10 trump
fit, and they have a 9-10. If they had only 9, the total tricks generally
suggests not to save as the winning situation is too narrow.
Oh well, now that I made the weak bid, I might as well consider my story told,
and more importantly, not to think forever to bar pd from any actions.
Against the 5H, I led a low D to the A, and when the 2nd D did not cash, we'll
need to eat the results. Declarer later made the safe play of C to A, which
dropped the K, but he still had one C to lose. That was -650 and a poor 9/51.