Three No Luck

Returned from a recent tournament with tales of woe:  too many 3NT contracts bid by our opponents (and few others) that either could not be beaten or were not beaten.

Dealer: E Vul: Both	North ♠ Q75 ♥ QT9653 ♦ A32 ♣ A
West ♠ 932 ♥ AJ7 ♦ 954 ♣ KT96		East ♠ AK84 ♥ 2 ♦ KQ ♣ Q87432
	South ♠ JT6 ♥ K84 ♦ JT876 ♣ J5

I won’t profess to understand the EW auction.  I assume the 1♦ response was somehow the product of the opponents playing inverted minors and West not wanting to respond 1NT with two unstopped suits … but then since there was no alert, I am not sure.  Why East would choose to rebid 2♣ rather than 1♠ is another mystery to me.  West’s 2NT rebid seems like a substantial overbid to me.  But there I was as North on lead against 3NT.  Would you find the diamond lead to set the contract?  I did not and led a pedestrian heart and -600 and 1.5 mps out of 16 was my side’s result.

From the same session:

Dealer: E Vul: None	North ♠ A4 ♥ T82 ♦ Q8743 ♣ AK4
West ♠ K875 ♥ J4 ♦ A92 ♣ T763		East ♠ QT6 ♥ AKQ5 ♦ KJT65 ♣ J
	South ♠ J932 ♥ 9763 ♦ — ♣ Q9852

This time I, as North, led the ♣K.  Seeing encouragement from partner, I continued two more rounds of clubs, setting up declarer’s ♣T.  Declarer took a few diamond finesses against me, using both the Trick 4 club entry and the ♥J entry and emerged with his contract.  -400 this time was worth 0.5 mps to my side.

From the companion session to the two-session event, so that I am sitting East:

Dealer: N Vul: Both	North ♠ A863 ♥ Q94 ♦ 74 ♣ KJ86
West ♠ JT42 ♥ AKJT ♦ J86 ♣ 95		East ♠ K7 ♥ 6532 ♦ K95 ♣ T742
	South ♠ Q95 ♥ 87 ♦ AQT32 ♣ AQ3

Partner led a high heart and continued the suit for two more rounds.  Declarer finessed the ♦T, losing to partner’s jack, lost a third heart, but could soon claim the remainder when a second diamond finesse and a 3-3 split in that suit yielded four diamond tricks.  Here, -600 was 1 mp out of 16.

In that same session, our opponents also bid to 4♥ on this layout:

Dealer: E Vul: NS	North ♠ 765 ♥ Q75 ♦ AK ♣ A9743
West ♠ 943 ♥ A98 ♦ 9632 ♣ K82		East ♠ KQJ82 ♥ 32 ♦ Q7 ♣ QJT7
	South ♠ AT ♥ KJT64 ♦ JT854 ♣ 6

There wasn’t much to the play.  Once my ♦Q fell on second round, declarer had four hearts, five diamonds, and two black aces.  -650 was 3 mps.