New Melville Bridge Congress 2014 - Part Two (Teams)

This is Part Two of my report of the New Melville Bridge Congress. Part One was the pairs, see here.

After the pairs finished we dashed to the pub for lunch, and some analysis of the afternoon's play. Two veggie burgers and two hot dogs. As the official results weren't in yet the main aim was to determine which pair had done better. With an ad-hoc BAM scoring system me and John concluded we'd won, but since neither pair did well at all we decided to switch the partnerships for the teams. I would re-unite with Jake, and Martin would play with John.

Me and Jake have played together competitively about once a year, beginning with a valiant but doomed attempt to win the Portland Bowl cup for Edinburgh University (see here). We have settled into a system of Weak NT (11-14), five card majors, and Rubensohl even though I'm not too sure how to play it.

The Teams Tournament consisted of only four matches, each of six boards. To give myself an extra boost of freshness I changed my T-shirt before the first round.

Match One: 20-0 (Total 20/20 VPs)

In our first match me and Jake were against Derek Sanders and Cath Dempsie, while Martin and Jake played Deirdre Sanders and Michael Marshall.

There were two big hands. Firstly, I doubled the opponents in 5♦, holding ♠ AK952 ♥ T94 ♦ - ♣ AQT63 . It was slightly risky, and I got very worried when Derek said he was thinking about redoubling. But I made my three top tricks, and opposite my Diamond void partner had five of them, so also got two trump tricks and it went three off. On another board Martin and John also collected an 800 penalty. These two hands were enough for us to win the match by 28 IMPs, which translated into 20-0 VPs. A flying start!

I should also apologise to everyone for Board 4, which I played painfully slowly, eking out a tortuous 3NT+1.

Match Two: 20-0 (Total 40/40 VPs)

Remarkably we kept things going in the second round, playing against Liz Barr and Ritchie Thompson's team. Jake bid an aggressive 4♠ which they missed at another table, and I eked out another 3NT by ducking a lot. Those were both game swings in. On the other table Jake and Martin collected yet another +800 when Martin punished a poor 4♠. Collectively those three good scores lead to +27 IMPs and another 20-0 win. That meant that whatever happened we were bound to finish on at least half marks.

Match Three: 20-0 (Total 60/60 VPs)

On this round against John Hamilton's team we got a bit of luck resulting in two game swings. John and Martin missed this slam, but so did the opposition. I think it's very hard to bid:

You can see that East-West have a big Diamond fit. There's just one loser in Hearts, as all the losing Spades go on the top Clubs. Even if you miss the slam 5♦ is a much better contract than 3NT, which needs Hearts 4-4.

Here's three attempts to bid the hand. I've starred the conventional bids.

W E 1♦ 2♦* 2♥* 3NT

W E 1♦ 2♦* 3♦* 3♥ 3♠ 3NT

W E 1♦ 1♥ 2♣ 5♦

The first one is from the opponents at my table. After the 1♦ opening there's an inverted minors response of 2♦, then East bids 2♥ to show a minimum (says nothing about Hearts) and West jumps to 3NT. Against 3NT I duly lead the ♥K and we got our four tricks. The second table is Martin and John bidding. This time after the inverted minor they used 3♦ to show a minimum, then West bid a natural 3♥. East didn't have enough in Spades to bid 3NT so bid 3♠, then West bid 3NT. What's the point of inverted minors if all it does is get you to 3NT?

The best auction I think was the third table from Derek Sanders and Cath Dempsie. East opens 1♦, West replies a natural 1♥ and East rebids 2♣. West has a powerful hand and jumps to 5♦. If instead of 5♦ West instead goes for a forcing 4♦, or fourth suit forcing you've a decent chance of finding the slam. On 24 tables 6♦ was bid only once, by Liz McGowan and David Liggatt I think.

Scoring up at the end of this match was more good news, we had enough IMPs for another 20-0 win.

Match Four: 12-8 (Total 72/80 VPs)

Going into the final round we were on 60 VPS out of 60, and our closest opponent on 45 VPs. This was the team of Irene Sime and David Kaye, who we had to play next. We all worked out that even if we lost the match by 17-3 (but no more), we would still win overall. I was terrified we were going to lose 20-0. I was pretty tired by now and went on a raid to the kitchen to get some tea. All I found was an old silver tin, which it turned out contained Earl Grey's, one each for me and Jake.

I was hoping for six flat boards. The first one ought to have been flat but I was too shy to rebid my Hearts, and so I landed Jake in a horrible 3♦-1 while the other table was easily making 4♥. Apart from some rather silly bidding with John in the morning, this was my only big blunder of the day. It cost us 10 IMPs.

This next board produced a heated debate in the Whigwam pub afterwards.

What do you open with the East hand? On our table the opponents opened 2♣, then rebid Clubs and got to a reasonable 5♣ contract. This went one off when the defence got two Spades and a Diamond - bad luck. When John and Martin sat East-West John opened the East cards 2NT [Edit - I had this backwards before, but I'm informed it was definitely John who opened 2NT]. Martin raised to 3NT and South lead a top Spade, the ♠A. The only signal the defence had available was for attitude, so when North discouraged South switched to another suit. What a relief for declarer! John took his ten tricks and we gained back 13 IMPs. On a different table when Derek was sitting East he instead opened 1♣, overcalled by South. He then twice cuebid Spades to try and encourage partner to bid 3NT. On the second time of asking Cath sitting West decided her ♠764 was a good enough stop and bid 3NT. North, not unreasonably, thought the opponents had Spades stopped so lead a Diamond. 3NT+1!

I have to admit if I was East I would have opened the hand 2NT. Of course it's not ideal, but so often you can make 3NT even when it's a bad contract (as happened here on two tables). However, Jake is adamant that 1♣ is the best bid. I now agree, as long as you are playing with a partner and opponents who will make sure the bidding doesn't die in 1♣.

These were not the flat boards were were hoping for. On the next one Martin had a big hand and launched himself all the way to 5♠. This went off one, for a game swing out. But then he got another good hand and this time propelled himself to an excellent 6♥, making +1 and not bid at the other table. Must have been stressful for John, with weak hands each time watching partner make forcing bid after forcing bid.

After those ups and downs the last two boards were mercifully dull, and in the end we won the match by 3 IMPs to give a 12-8 win in VPs. This gave us a stonking 72 VPs overall, and clear first place. I think we were pretty lucky, and just happened to have four good matches. Since the tournament only had four rounds there wasn't much scope for the best teams coming through, and expect with more rounds we might have slipped back a bit. It's odd we all did well in the teams having done poorly in the pairs; and similarly I noted that the two that won the pairs came last in the teams.

In conclusion: a famous win.