Sometimes you can pay too much attention to the opponents' bidding. This was an example.
Board #7
South dealer
Both sides vulnerable
| | North
♠ K J 9 8 4
♥ K 4 3
♦ K Q 8 4 2
♣ ——
| | West
♠ Q 7 3
♥ Q 7
♦ A J 6 5
♣ J 10 5 2
| | East
♠ 10
♥ A J 9 6 5
♦ 10 3
♣ K 9 6 4 3
| | | South
♠ A 6 5 2
♥ 10 8 2
♦ 9 7
♣ A Q 8 7
| |
|
| | | | |
| South | West | North | East |
| P | P | 1♠ | 2♥ |
| 3♥ | P | 4♠ | P |
| P | P | | |
Sitting North, I opened 1♠. I expected my partner to respond 1NT. I would then bid 2♦.
East decided that her hand was worth an overcall of 2♥. Most people would probably pass with her hand. A hand with only eight high-card points is pretty light for a vulnerable overcall at the two level. She does have a five-card club suit on the side. If East-West were playing one of the systems* that allowed her to bid both suits at once, that might have been preferable.
My partner invited to game with a cue bid, West passed, and I bid 4♠.
The contract cannot be made against the best defense, but I went down two because I eschewed the spade finesse. Finding a queen is one of the most difficult things, at least for me, in playing bridge hands. You try to maximize your chances by guessing each opponent's distribution and strength. Often, the two ways of viewing the situation work at cross purposes. Nevertheless, it should always improve your odds to go through the motions rather than to depend on the old maxim, "eight ever, nine never."
In this case East had overcalled in hearts. She almost certainly held at least five hearts, which only leaves her eight other cards. West has only two hearts, leaving eleven others. So, after both follow to two rounds of hearts and a round of spades, West has ten unknown cards and East seven. When West follows to the second round, nine of the sixteen missing cards are in West's hand. So, from a distributional perspective, the odds favor finessing West for the ♠Q. It's about a 59 percent chance.
The other way of looking at is from the perspective of high-card points. North-South has twenty-two, leaving East-West with eighteen. At the time that I attacked spades, I had seen West's ♥A and East's ♥Q. That's six of their eighteen. Twelve are left. I erroneously expected East to have 12-16 points for that overcall. So, I played West for four or fewer remaning points, and East for 8-12. So, from this perspective, the odds seemed to favor playing for the drop, which is what I did.
There is a third approach, which is to watch the spots carefully. East had played the ♠10 and West the ♠3 on the first round of trumps. West played the ♠7 on the second round. If their agreement was standard (upside-down count in the trump suit), then East must have the queen because West's play showed an even number, and East's was consistent with that possibility. However, this was a fairly new partnership, and I had no confidence in the consistency of their carding. So, the order of their plays did not enter into my calculation.
My choice of trying to drop the queen did not work. So, I ended up going down two. I will use the same approach the next time I am faced with this situation, but I will try to remember for future occasions that the player in the East chair might make a vulnerable overcall with much less than I would ordinarily expect.
* For example, "Tops and Bottoms" uses a 3♣ overcall to show the lowest and highest unbid suits. Players who use it never bid Michaels with a club suit.