Undercooked by Foxymoron

Bridge shares with other sport the use of the word "undercooked" in a figurative rather than a culinary sense. From a cricket report many years ago: "An undercooked pitch made stroke play easy yet seldom did wickets tumble." Not properly developed is the metaphorical meaning and this was the case with our auction this week.

The North hand is far too good for 2NT, weighing in at 23.6 on the K-R evaluation tool. We bid 2C-2D-2NT which we play as 23-24 balanced. Now Graham Horscroft raised to 4NT. From his point of view we could be missing two aces, but the five-card suit might tilt him towards just bidding slam. However, his K-R is 8.7 so I think his judgement is correct. And now the focus was on North. I think I should upgrade again and bid 6NT but I had already added two points and decided to pass. Together we had undercooked the hand.

6NT is a great contract. If the diamonds are 3-2, you have 12 top tricks and thirteen if they don't lead a spade. And when they don't break you can lead towards the king of spades for your twelfth trick. You can, in theory, also pick up the diamonds if you finesse on the second round, but you should not. A cunning West might have dropped the jack from JTx when you get egg on your face. This phrase apparently arises from the 19th century theatre when sub-par actors were sometimes pelted with eggs. Our auction was certainly sub-par.