Palm Beach Gardens - Part 1

Sorry for not updating the blog for a while, I have been very busy. I was in Palm Beach Gardens at the regional tournament there for the past week, there weren't too many really wild hands, but one from the Monday Night session was quite memorable! The 2nd board of the entire tournament, playing with a very good partner, who however is playing precision for only his 2nd time, so we were going to have to work through that a little bit. I pick up my hand, in 2nd seat all vulnerable I hold:

♠ AKQ9xx ♥ Q ♦ AQ ♣ AKQJ

So I of course open 1C, and partner makes the expected 1D response showing 0-7 HCP. Now I ran through a lot of options in my hand, but finally decided to bid 1430 for Diamonds, since all I really cared about was the King of Diamonds and the Ace of Hearts. It was a brilliant plan I thought... Partner denied any keycards, and undeterred I bid 6S and earned myself this beautiful dummy:

♠ x ♥ JTxxx ♦ Jxxx ♣ xxx

♠ AKQ9xx ♥ Q ♦ AQ ♣ AKQJ

I was kinda stuck, after all, I had no entries to dummy, and received a club lead. Luckily trumps split 3-3, but even then, there was only one hope... A squeeze creating an endplay. As long as the King of Diamonds is in the hand with the ace of hearts, and I read the cards correctly, I can make. So I ran off 5 spades, and all my clubs, making sure to preserve 3 hearts and diamond in dummy. On these LHO followed to all of the clubs, and pitched 2 small diamonds. RHO followed to 2 clubs, and pitched 2 hearts and 2 diamonds, leaving this ending:

	♠ ♥ JTx ♦ J ♣
♠ ♥ Kxx ♦ x ♣		♠ ♥ Ax ♦ Kx ♣
	♠ x ♥ Q ♦ AQ ♣

On my last Spade, LHO can pitch a Heart or a Diamond, but RHO is in trouble. If he pitches a Diamond, I drop his now stiff king. If he pitches a small Heart, I exit with my Heart, and he's endplayed into allowing a Diamond finesse. If he pitches his Ace of Hearts, then I exit my Heart, and LHO is endplayed into either leading a Heart into dummy's good Jack, or leading into my AQ of Diamonds... Either way I have 12 tricks. As it was, RHO was not too imaginative, and pitched a small heart. Now I exited the heart, and took the diamond finesse to make 6, the full deal:

	♠ x ♥ JTxxx ♦ Jxxx ♣ xxx
♠ Jxx ♥ Kxx ♦ Txx ♣ Txxx		♠ Txx ♥ Axxx ♦ Kxxx ♣ xx
	♠ AKQxxx ♥ Q ♦ AQ ♣ AKQJ

This was a complete top, worth all the matchpoints, and lots of bragging rights too! I'll have more from Palm Beach shortly.