Warming up

I'm playing this week with my good friend Tammy. We've played a few times before but not for a while. Our agreements aren't all that thorough just yet (better get it together soon, we're entering our first National event today!), which presented a few problems for us yesterday. We had a good day, though, making the overalls in the first session pair game, and then coming from behind in both matches to win and advance out of the first session 3-way match in the kickoff KO.

Here are some of the hands I wrestled with:

Matchpoints, third seat, favorable, you hold:

1. Q7 KJ984 AQJ52 8

1C (P) 1H (P)
3C (P) ?

Let's say you bid 3D here, which is not NMF in our agreements. I didn't really care if she read it as natural or a cuebid, I figured it was the right call here. Then pard bids 5C. Now what?

This is why I really hate fast arrival bids. We're already at 5C and the only thing Tammy can know for sure about my hand is that I have 4 or more hearts. I figured that since I was so much better than she could know, we must be on for slam if she can bid 5C. I wish I knew if we could bid 6N, but I raised to 6C, which is a maker. 6N is not, opposite pard's A63 - K8 AKT76542.

2. Still matchpoints, fourth seat, all vul:

Q4 KT75 5 AQT963

(P) 1H (P) ?

I couldn't decide between 2C, 2N (jacoby), and 4D. I ultimately landed on 4D, which in retrospect I don't like at all. My initial concern with starting with 2C was that pard would never know what a great fit I had for her. She bid 4H over my 4D, and that's all it makes when she misguesses the HQ. We still got most of the matchpoints because a lot of people got themselves too high here.

3. Now we're playing teams. Our team is slightly behind in both matches of a 3-way, and on the last board of what I felt had been a decent comeback, I picked up these cards in first seat favorable:
Q43 K4 KT82 QT73

P (P) 1H (1S)
X (2S) 3C (3S)
?

My plan had been to bid 3S myself and hope pard could bid 3N, but I don't have room for that. Also, I want to be led to with these cards. Sigh. I chose 3N, planning all along to run if they doubled. So it went:

3N (P) P (X)
4C (P) 5C (X)

I think maybe I should have bid 4H instead of 4C, but as it happens, we'll make 5C with anything other than the awful trump break Tammy got. She played it well to hold it to down 1 opposite our teammates' making 3S. Win 1. Cool.

4. In the other match, we were down by 6 going into the final 6 boards. On the third board out, I picked up this hand in fourth seat, all white:

K AKQxx x QJxxxx

(P) 1S (P) 2H
(P) 2S (P) 3C
(P) 3D (P) 4C
(P) 4N (P) 5C (I was relieved that I could answer keycard here without bypassing 5C. I wasn't sure Tammy really wanted to ask or if she just wanted to sign off, but I was not settling for a 4L signoff)
(P) 6C

Tammy really hadn't wanted to bid 6C, or worried that it may be wrong, but she was totally right. With her AQxxxx JT Ax Axx, 6C was easy after losing the offside CK. Incidentally, 6H is also a maker here. We won 11 when the opponents got shy and stopped at 5C.

We didn't have the most scientific auctions -- still kinda bumpy as we figure each other out, but we did manage to find most of the right spots, including one 2N in a game forcing auction where Tammy pulled the pass card instead of 3N in a brain fart. That was a win 6 when there are only 8 tricks to be had:)

At halftime in the KO, we'd been down 12 and down 6, but we came from behind to win by 13 and win by 0. Okay, fine, call it a tie, but we had a +630 where our teammates were -620. So there. Now I'm off to the playing site to play round two of this KO. Then Tam and I are entering the National Womens Pairs at 1. I figure we have about a 30% chance of making the cut -- this is the first national event for both of us, and we're doing it more for the experience than the shot at a championship, but I'm really excited. Wish us luck!