[Echognome]

Scoring: XIMP

P - 1♣ - 1♠ - 1NT
3♠ - 3NT - P - 4♥
All Pass

---

Trick 1: ♣3 - A - 8 - 6
Trick 2: ♠3 - A - 5 - 6
Trick 3: ♦A - 5 - 2 - 3
Trick 4: ♣4 - ♠J - ♥2 - ♣2
Diamond ruff, club overruff. Diamond ruff.

4♥-3 was not a good score.

Assign the blame between the bidding of North, South, EW, bad luck, and declarer play.

[mr1303]

3NT is somewhat fruity on those cards. Mind you, EW look good for making 3S.

And 4H shouldn't be 3 down. If N had banged down the AK of hearts it would have made possibly up 1, losing 1S, 1D and not much more. Mind you, this is looking at it double dummy.

[david_c]

Surely 4♥ is the right place to be, so no blame to the bidding.

Declarer should play a trump when East leads the club through, holding it to -1.

I think I would have ruffed a club at trick two. Not sure whether this is right, but it seems to make as the cards lie.

[PMetsch]

The club lead looks like a singleton, so with trumps 3-1 it is unlikely to set up clubs. I also have to avoid 2 club ruffs and lead ♦ twice from the dummy. To avoid 2 club ruffs, the hearts have to split 2-2 or RHO must have singleton J/Q. So I start with a high heart, now if RHO plays ♥Q/J I play a diamond otherwise I play a second round of trumps.
A spade at trick 2 is not so good and not ruffing the club return is careless.

[Fluffy]

Thinking of this handis giving me a headache, I'll abstain sorry.

[mikeh]

Jlall, on Oct 28 2005, 08:54 AM, said:

South gets the blame for playing it badly. What did he think the club lead was?

1N seems horrible, it's a normal neg X. 4H after pard bids 3N is inconsistent with bidding 1N which will rarely have even 4 hearts. South is lucky north had AKx of hearts. The 3N bid looks normal, so north gets no blame for anything.

Almost ditto: I am not sure that 3N was 'normal'. I do think it was 'right', but it was a bit of a stretch (however, what alternative is there?)

I cannot over-stress how ill that 1N makes me. If you negative double, you can often intelligently get back to Notrump when nt is right. But when you bid notrump, you can never intelligently get back to ♥. They did get back to ♥, but not intelligently