Are you not supposed to be Aggressive Playing Board a Match?

Playing BAM with a pickup partner last night, had a couple of hands that just confused me. BAM is MP's on steroids, you do everything for that ultimate score, and +200 on defence is the ultimate. So these hands really confused me.

First hand, you pick up KT A64 QJ2 QT984 Vul vs Not, and hear it go 1C (Roman, 11-15 unbalanced or 16+) on your right. You decide to pass, not something I personally like, always strive to bid over a 2 way 1C opener, they have no clue what is happening yet. It now goes 1D neg on your left, 2H by partner, 3S on your right. I am not sure what is going on here, but you have an opening bid and support, I think you have to make some move. It turns out any move by you will work, double and 3S goes down 3, 4H makes, anything. But passing is 1 way to lose the board. Partner had Q982 KQJ83 A973 void. A good 2H bid, but partner is a passed hand and came into a live auction Vul vs Not. You lose the board when they doubled 3S at the other table and only beat it 2 tricks, but +300 beats +150.

Second hand, you hold A32 JT5 85 KQT98 NV vs Vul and pass in first seat. It goes 1D (can be short) on your left, pass, 1H Neg on your right. You now bid 2C (I like that bid) and it goes P, P, 2D on your right. This goes to partner who doubles it, P back to you, now what? What does partner have, he passed 1D, passed your 2C, and now doubled 2D. I think that has to be penalty, since partner could have bid 3C if wanted to play there. But this hand bid 3C which went double on his left, ending the auction. This dummy came down KJ96 K643 KQ96 5, about what partner should probably have. The opening lead is the 5 of Spades, J, Q, A. It now goes 5 Diamonds, 2, Q, 4. Then 5 of Clubs, 4, 8, 2. Declarer plays the Q of Clubs, 3, 3 Hearts, J Clubs. So it looks like Clubs are 5521 around the table, probably not good. Declarer now played 9 Clubs, 6 6 Diamonds, 4 of Spades, confirming the Clubs. I think he should now play a Diamond, but instead played the 2 of Spades and was overjoyed to see this get ruffed with the 7 of Clubs. It now went 3 Diamonds to the K, 7, 8 (?), so declarer played the K of spades from dummy, ruffed by the A of Clubs. Back came the A of Diamonds in this comedy of errors, which RHO followed to and declarer ruffed with the 10 of Clubs. The position is now the 9 Spades and K64 of Hearts on board and the K Clubs and JT5 of Hearts in hand, and declarer has lost 2 tricks. So declarer now played the J of Hearts out of hand and when LHO played low, let it ride(?), playing the opener for a full 9 or 10 count. This got punished as it should, win the Q on his right, 10 of Spades ruffed with last trump while LHO pitched a Heart, and claim down 1 for the defence with the A of Hearts and J of Diamonds. 2D doubled was down several, and on this defence, 3C was going to make, instead we lost the board again.

Last 1 you hold A6 AJ JT864 K982 and hear it go P, P, 1H (4 card major) by RHO. You decide to overcall 2D and this goes P, 2S by partner, P on your right. To me this looks like a good place to play this, but you decide to show a real hand and now bid 2N :) Partner raises this to 3N and it goes all pass. The opening lead is the 7 of Hearts which goes 5, 10, J. You play a Diamond to the Q and it surprisingly goes A on your right. RHO now returns the 3 of Clubs (?). You are missing 16 points on this hand, and LHO never took a call. You need 1 Club trick to go with the other tricks to get to 9, so I believe the correct play here is the K, assuming RHO has a real opener, since LHO looks to have some Hearts and did not raise. You also do now want LHO to switch back to Hearts, since you have gotten a reprieve. If you rise on the K of Clubs, it holds, and with the Spade hook on, 3N makes in an ugly fashion. Declarer actually played low, LHO won the Q, switched back to a Heart to clear that suit. Now declarer ran all the Diamonds, cashed A and out a Spade, and watched the opps claim down 2 for another lost board.

The only hand we won was another error by this hand on another tough declarer play problem. You hold A6 void K872 AKQJ982, all vul and open 1C in first seat. This goes pass, 1H by partner, pass on your right, so you decide to bid 2D to set up a force. This goes 2H by partner, so you end the auction with 3N. The opening lead is the 2 of Spades and this dummy tracks. T954 AQ843 JT9 4. You decide to play low from dummy (agree, put max pressure on the opps to make the correct play, playing low on these holdings works an amazing amount of the time) and RHO plays the K of Spades, which you win with the A. Personally, I think a second Spade is now the correct play, since playing Clubs will squeeze dummy. But the declarer here led a low Diamond from his hand, setting up what looked like 4 tricks for the defence. But not to be outdone, LHO won the A of Diamonds (?), another strange looking play by this person, and switched to the 2 of Hearts, yet 1 more strange play. So declarer won the A pitching a Spade, and remembering that he was playing BAM, played the J of Diamonds with his unexpected board entry and let it ride, LHO showing out. Another Diamond and it was easy to wrap up 12 tricks for an easy win on the board when the declarer at the other table did not find that play.

All in all it was a tough day, since admittedly, the hands were very tough and all players were being aggresive. But I believe it was yet another example of not paying attention to the opponents bids and plays and reconstructing their hands while declaring the hand.

Just wanted to add after that I think I was too negative with this post. I really was impressed with how GOOD the other players on the other team played. I think it was our team not playing that well and not thinking clear. I would not want to play those guys too often with a regular group that I play with.