The bidding: This is a hand that occurred at the Moses Lake sectional last month during the Swiss Team event.
East has 18 HCP’s and opens one heart. Two points stronger and he could have opened 2NT as long as he and his partner were playing Puppet Stayman as mentioned in the last two columns. East was not playing Puppet Stayman with Mexican two diamonds otherwise he could have opened two diamonds.
West has 6 to 9 points in support of hearts and raise partner to two. East now intends to bid game but North interferes with a direct cuebid. This shows a two-suited hand with spades and another suit. East bids game and South bids four spades which gets passed out.
The Lead: There is probably not a lot of future in tricks in hearts but West sees no other better lead. He leads the seven of hearts, top of nothing. West has supported hearts and cannot have a doubleton. The lead of a high heart tells partner he has no honour.
The play: South pitches a club on the ace of hearts and draws one round of trump. He then ruffs diamonds good and then loses the other high trump and claims 11 tricks.
Result: Four spades +1 for +650.
My partner, an extremely gifted bridge player overcalled three diamonds. I took no action vulnerable with a singleton diamond. I knew partner had a good hand to come in at the three-level vulnerable, but I could not bid my five-card spade suit to the Jack and I thought I could not run back to diamonds because of my singleton if fours spades was doubled.
We let them play four hearts for down two. We got +100 and at the other table, our teammates lost 650. We lost 11 imps and tied the match because over nine boards, our imps were the same.