Mea Maxima Culpa!

[OliverC]

This was a hand I got horribly wrong. In my defence I can only say that Naomi was playing with the dogs next to me and my concentration was as fully on the hand as it should have been. It's such an easy hand to get right, though, that that isn't an excuse. I simply dropped the ball:

Game All, Dealer South

North (Dummy)
A103
KQJ
AKQJ4
75

3 led

South
864
A10732
-
A8643

Bidding (Opps Silent)
South     North
No          1
1         1NT⁽¹⁾
2 ⁽²⁾     3 ⁽³⁾
4 ⁽⁴⁾     5 ⁽⁵⁾
6 ⁽⁶⁾    6 ⁽⁷⁾
No⁽

(1) Beta (Special Weak Scale)
(2) 4 Controls
(3) Gamma in Hearts
(4) Hxxxx
(5) Epsilon in Clubs
(6) 1st round control of Clubs, no 2nd or 3rd.
(7) Enough opposite a passed hand. I might have the Queen as well as the 2 missing Aces, but that's all.
( I was positively itching to bid 7 here, but discipline prevailed .

The play to the first 6 tricks was fairly automatic and inevitable: I won the Diamond lead in Dummy and played Ace and another Club, East playing the Jack under my Ace and winning the second trick with the Queen. East now led a small Spade to West's Jack and Dummy's Ace. 2 more rounds of Diamonds followed on to which both Opps followed upwards and on which I discarded another Spade and a Club.

With the lead in Dummy, the position was now:

North (Dummy)
103
KQJ
J4
-

South
-
A10732
-
86

Easy from here to ruff a Spade low, if West follows with a small Spade the position is fairly clear, in that with KQxx(x), East would surely have led back the King rather than risking a small one, so there are surely 3+ Spades on my left: Now ruff a Club in Dummy, ruff another small Spade low, ruff my last Club in Dummy, cash Dummy's remaining top Heart and I'm left with A10 in hand.

Instead I went for a much riskier (in retrospect) strategy, which was to play for West having at least 4 Diamonds or, if the Diamonds were not 4-4, for the hand with fewer Diamonds to have started with only 2 Hearts. I cashed two top Hearts in Dummy (everyone followed) and went to cash a 4th Diamond - unlucky: West had led small from 853 and had the last outstanding Heart, so -1.

The line I chose is clearly inferior to the first one. Just as well I hadn't bid 7 with that horrendous mis-match in Diamonds.