Hi all
Yesterday Martin and I participated in the qualifiers for the Open Dutch Championships Pairs. It was a rough night, we crossed about every strong opponent in the room and took some less fortunate decisions. What do you think about this one?
All vulnerable, my RHO passed and so did I. LHO opens 2
, either weak with 
or any semiforcing+. Martin overcalls 2
and I jump to game. Without taking a split second pause LHO bids 4
. Martin competes with 5, RHO 5 and I was willing to compete to the 7 level. I bid a descriptive 6 and Martin finally got doubled in 6.
Well, don’t you just want to claim twelve tricks? East certainly has everything for his gameforcing hand in , doesn’t he? Martin took a confident finesse in . Bad news: it was offside.
I have seen this before, people thinking a solid suit with an outside trick is worth a semiforcing.
Sigh!
I could barely suppress the urge to put a flamethrower on my opponent when he mentioned he did good this game. We scored 54%, occupying place 5, about 1% short in qualfying for next round. Better luck next year.