Hi all
Yesterday at Star I played like… like… in Dutch one can say “like a wet newspaper”. I guess that comes close. Defensive errors all around. Missed an easy biddable slam. Argh! And if everything goes bad, then I shouldn’t have tried this:
Sitting South I opened a 14-16 NT, René raised me to the NT game immediately without introducing his 
. I like that, North has more than enough (soft values) for game, and those , well, if we have a fit, they work in 3NT as well. And you keep them hidden from the opponents.
The defence kicks off with a 
. I ponder for some time, reviewing my chances. What am I going to collect? I need a favourable 
position for four tricks, one and two 
. I need more than just the Queen onside, I just don’t get to 9 tricks (unless the Queen of drops doubleton, of course). West having Ace-Queen of seems too remote a chance.
So I devised a cunning plan.
Back to the lead, East put in the Queen and returned the 9 for dummy. Now I played a small from table, a surprised West winning the trick with the 7. Now when he returned another I had butterflies in my stomach, it looks like the are breaking and West is desperately looking for a way to put East on lead. So I put up the King.
Curtains!
East shoots back a and I loose six tricks in the black suits. Losing an additional 3 imp for all my efforts, cause all other pairs were only set one trick.