At the evening of April 23, aihua, ruxi, another player and I formed an USTC team and played a team match at BBO. We won 30 imps, mainly due to the following 3 boards.

Board 3: Vul:  EW 

AKT 　 KTxxx AQx Jxxxx xx Q9x - QJ98x KTxx J9xx ATxx xx x 　 Axx 　 xx KQJxxx

叫牌过程： 北 东 南 西 　 　 1C P 1H P 2C P 2S P 3H P 3NT P P P

Aihua sit at south opened 1C at 1^st seat, and I bid 1h, she rebis 2c and I can bid 3nt now. But considering some slam chances I tried 2s and heard 3h from p, and I stopped at 3nt.

This turns out to be a lucky hand for us, 4h is hopeless with the worst possible trump distribution.  At the other table, South passed with this hand and with North opened 1h, they arrived at 4h, 10 imps for us.

Discussion:

1)  The 10 imps are partially attributed to South’s 1c opening. However, I don’t support the 1c opening with 10pts and a good minor suit at 1^ST seat, next time it might cost u 10 imps.

2) After partner’s 3h, I bidded 3nt without hesitation. Personally I like 3NT more than 4M.  Normally if u have enough points, say 28-30 pts and slam is unlikely, with all suits stopped, NT is safer than a 5-3 or 4-4 major—Because 3nt u don’t worry bad trump distribution or some unexpected cross ruf due to bad side suit distributions   Here I bid 3nt instead of 4h with 2 more things considered, 1 main reason is my heart suit is very weak and the other minor reason is to protect my DQ with an expected diamond lead.

Board 5 Vul: NS

J87x 　 AT8 x AQ9x T97xx KTx J9xx xx Tx AQJxxx AQx xx KJ 　 KQxx 　 Kxxx xxx

叫牌过程： 北 东 南 西 P 1NT P 3NT P P P

East opened a 2^nd seat strong 1NT and west arrived at 3NT after stayman.

Aihua, sit south, as usual, led an imaginary spade. West put up with ace and I played s2. Now came diamond 10 and let it go, south ducked 1^st d and east continued a d to dq won by dk, in which I discarded c2. Now it is easy for south to make the correct decision: a small heart ret beats 3NT. The other table opened 1d and the other side play 3nt+3, 11 imps to us.

Discussion:

1)    On 1NT opening: Frankly open 1nt with a semi-cold 6 card minor suit and 14 pts (some upgrading here) is also my style, however, it is a bit unlucky here.

2)    After seeing such a dummy I was nearly hopeless. I just played my card by inertia. I only saw light when H8 won a trick unexpectedly. Never give up in bridge!

3)    With a normal small heart opening lead we beat the contract easily.Normal usually is the best -----Because normal obeys the probability.

Board 7

Vul: both

Qx 　 xx QJ98x Axx KQxx JT987 KQ98xxx A Tx AKx T Kxx A98x 　 JTx 　 xxx Jxxx

叫牌过程： 北 东 南 西 　 　 P 3H P 3NT P P P

West open 3H at 2^nd seat and east bidded 3NT causually, which buried the sead of disaster. However, even if with double-dummy, u still need a few minutes to find how to beat this 3nt.

Aihua, sitting south, finding a killing lead—small spade, Note that if west held s7, the contract still could have been made, but unfortunately west held 5 continuous spades. I bet Aihua led a spade because she imagined that I could have long spades based on this auction. Hehe, this time her imagination is still wrong, but worked! What a luck.

The other table 4h+2, 13 imps to us.

2004/04/23