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jackLast night I went to meet non-blond non-Irish non-Chinese Dave at the university bridge club, which I used to go to on and off, but haven't been to for ages. It went fairly well. I don't think we did especially well[1], but we didn't have any really major miscommunication, and I felt I was familiar enough with the conventions to mostly understand what the default was, and feel more confident with playing with someone else from that group without going over the conventions with a fine-tooth comb first to make sure there was nothing gigantic I was missing.
I doubled someone playing 3NT. I'm still very nervous of doing that -- it's not usually a good idea because people usually only ever bid 3NT with the recommend amount of high-card strength so even if they go down, they're normally only one or two tricks short, and even if one defenders hand looks bad for declarer, all that often means is that he/she has all the cards and his/her partner doesn't have any.
But I had AJxx, AKx, JT98xx, -, so I wasn't certain I'd be able to make tricks with the long spades without any high cards, but it seemed a good gamble, and they went 5 off (1100pts). Dave worked out which suit to lead, and a queen to go with my spades, so we had two rounds of spades[2] which declarer had to win with the AK, and then declarer made a small mistake trying to get tricks in diamonds and let me make my outside J before taking his tricks in clubs where I was void, and I was able to win the rest of my spades and my AK of hearts.
In fact, I felt a little guilty for doubling, because implicitly doubling seemed to suggest that opponents should have been in 4S or 4H instead of 3N, and that if they knew what they were doing, after doubling, they might still bid that, but I didn't expect them to try to change the contract. But if 3NT was wrong, and it was probably either making or going off 5, then doubling isn't likely to make a difference, but might just be rubbing salt in the wound of a bad bid. But I was by no means that certain: it's still likely that another pair plays in 3N, or even that another pair sitting in the same position as Dave and I make 4S, in which case double is the only chance of getting more points than them.
[1] The variance is really high at the university club because there's a mix including of people including people who are still not very experienced, and including people who are quite good but not as consistent as people with 30 years of experience trying out really crazy systems, and because there's often a complicated movement for a weird number of people, so lots of boards have only two or three people playing them. So making just one overtrick compared to everyone else who bid the same contract is less common, but losing out to someone who gambled a crazy slam their system helped them find, or getting a gratuitous high score because your opponents didn't know what they were doing and stopped in 1S when they could have bid 4S, or apparently randomly gambled on making 6S when they didn't have a chance, is more common.
[2] In fact, I think he held off playing his K for another round, letting me make my J first, in case Dave didn't have any more spaded, but did have some of the other high cards (so my spades would be high, but Dave would win the trick instead of me and not be able to play any spades). Which is probably correct, but didn't make any difference, because I had all the high cards, which was why I doubled, and Dave did have another spade anyway.
I doubled someone playing 3NT. I'm still very nervous of doing that -- it's not usually a good idea because people usually only ever bid 3NT with the recommend amount of high-card strength so even if they go down, they're normally only one or two tricks short, and even if one defenders hand looks bad for declarer, all that often means is that he/she has all the cards and his/her partner doesn't have any.
But I had AJxx, AKx, JT98xx, -, so I wasn't certain I'd be able to make tricks with the long spades without any high cards, but it seemed a good gamble, and they went 5 off (1100pts). Dave worked out which suit to lead, and a queen to go with my spades, so we had two rounds of spades[2] which declarer had to win with the AK, and then declarer made a small mistake trying to get tricks in diamonds and let me make my outside J before taking his tricks in clubs where I was void, and I was able to win the rest of my spades and my AK of hearts.
In fact, I felt a little guilty for doubling, because implicitly doubling seemed to suggest that opponents should have been in 4S or 4H instead of 3N, and that if they knew what they were doing, after doubling, they might still bid that, but I didn't expect them to try to change the contract. But if 3NT was wrong, and it was probably either making or going off 5, then doubling isn't likely to make a difference, but might just be rubbing salt in the wound of a bad bid. But I was by no means that certain: it's still likely that another pair plays in 3N, or even that another pair sitting in the same position as Dave and I make 4S, in which case double is the only chance of getting more points than them.
[1] The variance is really high at the university club because there's a mix including of people including people who are still not very experienced, and including people who are quite good but not as consistent as people with 30 years of experience trying out really crazy systems, and because there's often a complicated movement for a weird number of people, so lots of boards have only two or three people playing them. So making just one overtrick compared to everyone else who bid the same contract is less common, but losing out to someone who gambled a crazy slam their system helped them find, or getting a gratuitous high score because your opponents didn't know what they were doing and stopped in 1S when they could have bid 4S, or apparently randomly gambled on making 6S when they didn't have a chance, is more common.
[2] In fact, I think he held off playing his K for another round, letting me make my J first, in case Dave didn't have any more spaded, but did have some of the other high cards (so my spades would be high, but Dave would win the trick instead of me and not be able to play any spades). Which is probably correct, but didn't make any difference, because I had all the high cards, which was why I doubled, and Dave did have another spade anyway.