Rushing in where angels fear to tread

See how you would develop the bidding on this hand. FOURTH SEAT, ALL VUL, S:Q 8 2 H: J 8 6 3 D: A K 9 C: A J 9.
Lefty ONE HEART, Partner ONE SPADE, Righty TWO CLUBS. Your bid?
I prefer a cue TWO HEARTS to TWO SPADES, Lefty passes, partner bids TWO SPADES (a minimum? ) RHO bids THREE CLUBS.
Your bid? We may be on for FOUR SPADES. How much is the penalty likely to be? I like my Diamond controls both on defense and offense. The lack of a fourth spade says defend, I chose DOUBLE. all passing. The full hand.

Dlr: W Vul: All KJ10654 A109 J4 87 A7 KQ542 Q7632 3 93 7 1085 KQ106542 Q82 J863 AK9 AJ9

By attacking spades and taking our diamond ruff, we got DAK, D ruff, one spade, one heart, and two clubs for down three doubled, or 800. Since we have game, this was worth 5 odd IMPS.

An interesting bidding decision, and a unusually brutal punishment for a sevenbagger opposite a opener.

Demon Double of 3NT

Dlr: E Vul: All J98 AJ72 62 Q1096 10762 Q9 A75 AK75 AQ4 K64 Q9843 42 K53 10853 KJ10 J83

After TWO PASSes W (my Lefty) opens proeceedings with ONE DIAMOND. Partner, an action player introduces a DOUBLE. Righty brushes this aside with THREE NOTRUMP. I think this is based on minor length and I think partner must hold club honors for his DOUBLE, and I have diamonds well under control, Partner is implying the majors and we should have tempo and quantity. So I make a penalty DOUBLE, all passing.

I lead H3, declarer plays the Q (nine would have forced partner to put in the J) parter wins The Ace, and returns the deuce showing a four card suit. I chuck the 8 under the nine as declar wins just in case it is a five card suit, T3, Diamond to T and A, partner playing the 2. T4. Diamond back to myJ. T.5 T6 hearts ending in partner's hand (he overtakes to cash) two clubs pitched from dummy and a spade from declarer's hand. Partner switches to 8 of spades Q , King,
and having already taken FIVE tricks, I am on lead in this position.

Dlr: E Vul: All J9 none none QT96 T76 none 7 AK A none Q94 42 53 none K J83

Well, two things should be clear now. A. Partner's double was comic. B.The score we are going to get is excellent, be it 200, 500 or 800. Therefore, one need not cash the DK now, since declarer and dummy are marked with diamonds, and declarer with the Ace of spades, setting up a spade is the right thing to do.

I pondered in the speedball tournament, and gave up on the spade play, as the position was not clear enough in my mind. A mistake! I cashed the DK for 500, simply worried I might not get my DK, and now declarer took his diamond tricks and clubs and SA for down 2 doubled.

These are the situations where you have a declarer on the ropes and you have to deliver the knockout by careful calculation. Only 9.44 IMPs won on this hand instead of 12.44 IMPs.

What to say about partner's action? At duplicate, needing swings, one can do all sorts of things, some of which of course have the potential to backfire, say E redoubles and then I hold a Yarborough and they double all runouts for 1100?

Matchpoint Tricks by Axelsen, B. and Dam, V.

A book that I just got in the mail. A mixed bag of hands in terms of difficulty. One very cute trick from one of the hands: The following is a side suit in which East has preempted at the three level. In the closed hand is the singleton Ace of the side suit. The layout is:
......... North
......... QT9
West........................... East
xx .......................... KJxxxxx
......... South
......... A
With plenty of entries to dummy, You advance the Queen of the sidesuit, East covers, you win perforce, Now a ruffing finesse situation sets up a winner for a discard in yet another suit.

Won't you defend this hand with me, partner? (II)

East	South	West	North
Pass	Pass	1♠	Double
3♠	Double	Pass	4♣
Pass	4♦	Pass	4♥	All Pass

After two PASSes Lefty opens ONE SPADE, Partner DOUBLES, RHO bids THREE SPADES, and I make a DOUBLE. I am a passed hand.

Partner decides to pull the double (actually to FOUR CLUBS, I bid FOUR DIAMONDS, he bids FOUR HEARTS, a funny route, but after much agony, we take +650, a decent result for +6 IMPs.)

The truth is that in this modern world of responsive doubles, and no penalty doubles ever, EW were going for -4 and -5 undoubled all over the place for -200 and -250.

A double and -5 for -1200 ANYBODY??? That would have been worth a juicy 12+ IMPs.

Won't you defend this hand with me partner? (I)

It chagrins me, how, otherwise good players will not take an easy penalty of three spades or four clubs of the opponents, instead, rebidding their shown values, and putting themselves in a tough or hopeless contract.

Case example ONE. From Cross-IMP 12 board tourney.

Dlr: W Vul: Nil 102 AK10872 K3 QJ2 AQJ4 96 Q1074 A94 973 J5 A86 87653 K865 Q43 J952 K10

The partscore competition was fierce. LHO ONE DIAMOND, partner ONE HEART, Righty PASS, moi TWO DIAMONDS (I meant to bid TWO HEARTS but misclicked, the cue bid was ok if it represented a trump more than I had, values about there.) Lefty TWO SPADES. Partner THREE HEARTS. Righty FOUR DIAMONDS. I now DOUBLE. Lefty passes. Should partner pass or bid FOUR HEARTS? He chose to bid on. I feel sorry about the cue bid, but should my double be a deterrent here? I think so. +500 for -3 is easy.

Instead we went -50.