The Fearsome Jack!

Had pretty good fun at the NICKO first round. Playing at full efficiency in the first half (against pretty decent opponents), we were leading by 33 points capped by some nasty overbidding by the opponents (well pushed by dave and me on one side), and a tricky overbid 3NT (overbidding by dave) made by me under some tricky conditions and fooling the opponents upside down.

SO... here's some bidding action (as witnessed by me)...

You are sitting North (vul vs non-vul) and holding...
A10xx
Axx
QJ10xx
x

The bidding goes:-
East 2C (showing at least 5-4 in Majors, 7-11 pts)
South (Dave) 2D (Natural Overcall 10+)
West (after a long pause) 3NT

What would you bid?

Trusting Dave's conservative bidding style in vulnerable conditions, I would believe that we had the major share of the points, with him holding at least a 5 card dime holding headed by an Ace, with perhaps some HCPs in the other 3 suits even spread out. The opps club suit may run up to 6 or 7 tricks and West should be holding at least a Kx stop in dimes to bid a 3NT. Doubling 3NT is likely to be passed out for -2 or -3 while Dave and I could very well have a perfect diamond fit, with a loser in club and dime each. The two aces are too important to be ignored.

And therefore comes the 5D bid which went passed out.

It turns out that Dave has a super "conjugate" hand...
xx
K
AKxxxx
Qxxx

Cold 6D with just a club loser!! If I was Dave, I could have easily bid the 6D given the perfect hand... Too bad this was the first time we are playing together to reach such a situation.

Yet another slam hand...

It is all non-vul. You are sitting South and holds:-
Jx
x
1098x
KQJxxx

East opens 1H and what would you do in this case?

An aggressive 3C bid comes in and West puts in 4C, showing good support, and asking for slam try. Partner bids 5C and East comes in with 5H. South gladly passes and West went 6H. After quite a pause, Dave bid 7C which is eventually doubled, of course!

Ace Heart lead came and Dave smiled in his automatic 7C bid, which is:-
K108x
xxx
-Void-
A1098xx

Eventually it went 2 off, not quite a bad result on first look, as we would deduce 6H is cold... Here are West's and East's hands respectively.

West
AQxx
AJxx
AQxx
x

East
9xx
KQ10xx
KJxxx
-Void-

Given that I am leading, a diamond lead would come and it would be down one automatically!

Yet on the other table, our teammates are playing 6H but it is west as the declarer. No ruff, no issue as 6H is cold on the layout. West cleared all the suits (except leaving a heart on each side), discarding a spade on the dime and is left with in spades 9xx opposite AQ7.

A small spade is played towards the AQ7, where a small from South would automatically subject North to being endplayed (where he is forced to give a ruff-and-discard or sending into the tenace). South is alert enough to play the Jack. What would you do as the declarer?

Several options lie ahead:-
1. Take the ace and hopes for King drop.
2. Play the queen and hopes that King is with South
3. Play small and hopes for King overtake (given it is singleton - same as 1).
4. Play the queen and if North is to win with King, finesse for 10 on the North (as by principle of restriction South has played the Jack).

As ridiculous as it may sound, playing the queen offers the best chances, which sadly our teammates probably panicked at the sight of Jack and forgot about the important 9!!! We end up having -50 - 300 = -350, instead of probably having +980 + 50 = 1030!!