Philadelphia, Part 2

Hi all

So when we qualified for the second day of the Spingold, we were seed #62. I would have loved to play Monaco, but we got matched up with team Diamond instead (Hampson & Greco, Gitelman & Moss and Diamond & Platnick). Urgh! Some heavyweights.

The first quarter I had some startup problems, defending sub-optimally, choosing to defend with a 7-5 in the Majors, and throwing the towel too early in partscore battles. It all adds up so quickly. After the first 16 boards we’re staring into a 50 IMP abyss. Sigh!

Here’s an impressive sequence to a borderline slam, Hampson and Greco showing off their tools and agreements.

West
North
East
South
 
2NT1
pass
32
pass
3
pass
43
pass
44
Double
pass5
pass
Redouble6
pass
47
pass
4NT8
pass
59
pass
6
a.p.
 
  1. 19-21
  2. Stayman
  3. Natural, slammish
  4. Keycards, are trumps
  5. “I worry about the position”
  6. “Don’t worry, I got it under control. Now show me your keycards!”
  7. One keycard
  8. Trump Queen?
  9. Yes, and the King

This was the full deal:

West Dealer
NS Vul
North
JT4
AQ63
KQ7
AK3
West
Q8762
K984
T62
4
East
93
52
AJ984
J965
South
AK5
JT7
53
QT872

As you can see 6 needs some work. Trumps splitting or the Jack onside (or stiff). King of onside and 3-3, or a squeeze against length and the Queen. Obviously Greco had no problem squeezing the life out of me. I don’t blame my team mates at all for not finding this slam.