Mental Stretching

If you're curious what drew me away from this amazing game, my triathlon report can be found on my other blog.

Last night I only played 5 hands, but it was enough to show how out of practice I really am. Take this hand, for example.

(I'm really going to have to figure out how to embed these.)

I counted points off the top. Dummy had 10, I had 11. I figured partner for about 8, so maybe as much as 11 for declarer.

I won the ace of hearts, and returned a heart, partner showing that she started with 2 hearts. Partner discarded a club on the second round of trumps.

Ok, so partner started with 1 spade and 2 hearts, my mind creaked. That means 10 minors. Since she bid clubs, I'll assume 6 clubs, 4 diamonds.

Now, I knew, I should stop and figure out declarer's opening distribution. Alas, I hadn't even thought to count out dummy's opening distribution. SIGH. My mind just wanted to shut down, and it was surprisingly difficult to make it reason it out. (I was just mentally waving "declarer has lots of majors" and getting bored.)

FINE. Declarer has to have 6 spades. So 6322.

Later, when declarer showed out on the second round of clubs, I just couldn't overcome my inertia. It was only after the hand that I thought "huh, so partner was 7321".

I have a lot of work ahead of me.