Me and Anna were in it to win it, and got off to a decent start when Anna made some good opening leads, and good decisions.
A test came with this hand, where Anna was sitting West.
| ♠ J T 8 7 |
| ♥ T 8 7 |
| ♦ J 7 4 |
| ♣ T 7 2 |
An easy pass to begin with, but then...
| Anna | Danny | ||
| W | N | E | S |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | |||
| - | 1♥ | x | 4♥ |
| - | - | x | - |
| ? |
Partner has made not one, but two takeout doubles. Should you bid now, with four card Spade support?
Anna decided that with so many losers it was best to pass. This worked well, as we took 4♥ off, and can't make 4♠. This was the full deal (Board 27).
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4♥x-1 gave us +100, for most of the matchpoints. The usual result on other tables was 4♥-1.
Then things started to go bad pretty badly. After about ten hands, I stopped writing down the scores and went to get a whisky. The lowlight was when the opponents had a weird auction (at one point South audibly muttered "Three Diamonds?. What the fuck is Three Diamonds?") and ended up in an un-makeable 4♥. Declarer took his nine winners, then gave up the lead. I could have just cashed the last four tricks for one off, but instead played a card over to Anna who was endplayed into giving declarer his tenth trick (Board 7). Very poor.
Next, a tough decision. Would you cover the Queen of trumps, led from dummy, with the West hand?
| K 9 7 |
|
| Q 3 2 |
Apparently, you should, as it saves a trick. Here's the full deal (Board 18).
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Anna opened 1♣, and the opponents were soon in 2♥. This was about to get passed out, when I came back in with a very bold 3♣ as East. This was pretty reckless, and I was extremely worried when South doubled me. Luckily they went to 3♥, which is a normal contract. But we bodged the defence. Firstly not covering the ♥Q cost a trick. Secondly, me hopping up with ♦J also cost a trick.
After that was a hand where Anna tried to ruff with a Diamond, when Hearts were trumps. The opponents were very nice though and let her change it. It didn't help us though - this was the hand where declarer has the singleton ♣K on the table. Both me and Anna had a chance to cash a Club, but didn't, and before long our Club trick inevitably disappeared and declarer made an overtrick to give them a top (Board 24). It was not going well.
We had a very poor round against Norman and Anne. To be fair Anna gave a good defence to 2♠ to take it off two (Board 15), but then it went awry. With a big decision to make Anna decided the five level belonged to her, and bid 5♠ over Anne's 5♦. This went one off for another dud result (Board 14).
The only highlight was the quality of my chat. Anna had warned me about mentioning to anyone that I'm interested in going to a real-life auction this Friday, but I decided to bring it up anyway, and hit the jackpot. Edith and Nancy are regulars at McTeers, and gave me all sorts of tips.
Later I gave Anna a powerful pep talk, and things picked up. At least the results did, some of the play was still very dodgy. This was a rather bizarre auction, that ended up nicely (Board 12).
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West opened 1♠ and Anna overcalled 1NT. This should really be only 15-17, stronger hands double then bid No Trumps. The risk of overcalling 1NT with 18 points is missing game, which was about to happen here. I had the South cards and decided I would just transfer into 2♥, then pass. But Anna ignored my transfer altogether and put herself into 3NT. I corrected into 4♥, and luckily Anna had three of them. After winning the slightly odd ♦Q lead I played Ace and another Heart (slightly better is to finesse on the first round just in case West has KQJx), then got Clubs right for an excellent 4♥+1.
Overall we finished 22nd out of 45 pairs, with 50.3%. Full results here.
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