I hadn't played for two and a half months, but I broke the drought last night at the Manhattan. It's STAC week again, so I played with Agent 99 to see if we could collect some silver. We overbid like crazy, which seemed to be a winning strategy as we finished up with over 64%, which was good for second place East-West. We only had one real bottom, but there were a few boards distinctly below average. One in particular is driving me crazy.
I played in 6S, claiming all 13 tricks when the opening club lead wasn't ruffed. That was a poor score, 2.5 out of 11 matchpoints, as a number of people found a grand slam or 6NT. I want to bid this to 7S, but I have been struggling to find a convincing sequence when we start 1H – 1S; 1NT (15-16 hcp). Even if we were playing strong jump-shifts and started 1H – 2S; 3S I'm having trouble getting to where I can count thirteen tricks with any degree of certitude. Perhaps I'm overlooking something obvious because we're out of practice, or perhaps I'm expecting too much exactitude. But I do like to be pretty sure for grand slams. I'll punt small slams with the best of them, but not grands.
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