Sometimes, we need to keep things around that we thought we were done with
Today's Bridge: There were some really weird splits today, and only one of them was a goulash. Raymond opened that 3S when I predictably had no spades. I had no way to urge him to bid his next best suit, and figured spades might still be the best choice. They may or may not have been. But I opened S K-Q H Q-x-x-x D A-10-8-x C A-10-x with 1D, because I was just too weak for notrump. Ken overcalled 1S, and Raymond responded 2C. I tried 2H, he corrected to 3D, and I went for the old standby with a minor suit fit and stoppers elsewhere and bid 3NT. His hand was S x-x H A-x D 9-7-x-x C K-J-x-x-x, which didn't offer much hope. The opening spade ran to my king, and I strongly considered tossing the queen back and hoping that an opponent would be squeezed by the last spade. But that was doubtful. I needed to set up the clubs, so I started by cashing the ace, on which Ken dropped the queen. I cashed the suit, and he sluffed two hearts and then two spades, while I threw a diamond and a heart. That gave me the opening I needed to run the nine of diamonds. Ryan covered with the jack, but I ducked anyway, and Ken had to take the king, exiting with a heart. I let that run to my queen, and when the queen of diamonds fell under the ace, I made an overtrick. I tried 4C with a slight mismatch, but it came down to the trump layout - after each opponent had ruffed once, I needed trump to split 2-2 with the king onside (missing K-J-10-3), and that wasn't the case. Ryan also threw away an early 2NT by failing to cash the long hearts in dummy, although Raymond gave him another chance by not leading a diamond back to me. He made right at the second opportunity, though, and I was able to run the suit.