Daily IntoBridge

I intend to post at least one hand  from IntoBridge on a daily basis. The above one looks boring. The simple contract is 4♠ from North. It only becomes interesting to study after you see a red loss sign. On my table, Lia on East and West cashed three tricks before exiting in hearts.

On the other table, the bidding was 1♠ - 2♠ - 4♠ simply, and East led a small heart. You can now draw trumps, discard two hearts from the hand and establish one more diamond trick, resulting in +1. The "aggressive Drury" 2♣ is exactly as described with my eight losers, but does not work here. 

Maybe it is not a good idea by North to publish the diamond control to the world and thus preventing East to lead one. For sure, I should have used fast arrival with my three card support in spades, even with maximum for my pass. In the end the fault was mostly on my side.

Here is another one. On my table, Lia did not bid the slam try with 4♣, but raised to game immediately, which was doubled by East and passed for penalty by West. From this bidding, one can conclude that East is most likely blank in trumps. Consequently, a small spade to the table, intending to finesse the ♠8 makes the contract. If you finesse the ♣Q to the right side, you get even an overtrick.

I am not sure if the preemptive bid on the 3-level is the right action in this vulnerability on the long run. Some players opened 2♠ only which was always raised to 4♠. The slam try by North is questionable too. He needs something like the ♦A and ♠KQ at least, and even then it is not a good contract.