Hutcheson's Swiss Pairs

At this prestigious event I was lucky enough to be paired with current Scotland team member John Faben. We were hoping to do quite well, although had handicapped ourselves by agreeing to play all of the bidding system John is using in the Camrose with regular partner Phil Morrison. Of course John knows this well, but I don't, and it was quite a strain trying to remember ten pages of his system notes. On the first board I insisted we swap places so I could be South and wouldn't have any further burden myself by having to enter the scores too.

This is more bridge than I've played in a long time, and I was slightly daunted when tournament director Horst Kopleck announced at noon that the event was a full 48 boards, with the first three rounds taking us up until lunch at 3 pm. I endeavoured to save my energy and not think to much - a tactic which had mixed results.

The event is also open to Juniors, and I was delighted that two of the pairs were pupils from The High School of Glasgow. Two of them actually won a prize (£30) for being the top Junior pair. As it happened we didn't get to play against them, which would have been fun.

John and I won our first match and shot up the field, before shooting back down after losing to Gints and Martin. After that we narrowly won all our matches to finish a creditable 7th equal out of 54 pairs. The winners were Bill Durning & Duncan Rogers, with host John Di Mambro & Douglas Mitchell second. Full results available on the SBU website here.

John and I had relatively few mix-ups, but here's one of them. This was the first hand after lunch:

W N E S 1♣* - 1♥ - 1♠ - 2♦* - 3NT - - -

I had the West hand and opened 1♣, which shows various hands none of which I had. The problem was I thought three of my Diamonds were Hearts and had mis-sorted my hand. After John replied 1♥ I realised what had happened and calmly rebid 1♠. John bid fourth suit forcing (to game), inviting me to raise Hearts or bid NT with a Diamond stop. I did have quite a good Diamond stop so bid 3NT, following the rule that if you're in a mess and need partner to pass bid 3NT or 6NT depending on the level you are at. Thankfully, despite his big Heart suit, John left it in 3NT.

I received a Heart lead, won by the ♥K in dummy, and everyone was a bit surprised when I showed out of Hearts. John did well not to say anything, especially as I had actually revoked earlier in the day. After a Spade finesse and knocking out the ♦A I took a bold finesse of the ♦8 and had ten tricks in the bag. As I cashed the Diamonds I was vaguely aware someone might get squeezed but didn't quite work it out and lost the chance of 11 tricks, still scoring a somewhat undeserved 92% for 3NT+1.

I was pleased to see afterwards one of my pupil pairs also bid and made 3NT+1, while the other made 4♦=, also getting an above average score as many were in a failing 4♥.

John and I got most of the high-level decisions right, pushing the opponent's up and sacrificing when it was profitable. We also bid some part scores aggressively for good results, as John helmed some dicey 4-3 fits. I know that he will be rueing the 6NT-1 that could have made though. My biggest regret is the hand below:

W N E S - - 1♣ - 1♠ - 1NT - 3♥ - 4♥ - - -

I passed the strong West hand, only 9 points after all. We were playing a strong NT so John's 1NT rebid showed 12-14. I invited with 3♥ (also showing 5-5) and he couldn't have much better so bid the game. The defence lead Ace of Hearts and Nine of Hearts. I paused to consider.

Counting losers, I could lose one Heart, one Spade (can't ruff them all now), one Diamond and one Club. So I determined to get rid of my Diamond loser, by winning the second round of Hearts in hand and leading a Club up to dummy. I was hoping the Ace would be onside, and that West, who looked like he wouldn't have any more trumps, wouldn't be able to draw dummy's last trump. But East won the ♣A and returned a trump, and now I'm stuck with two Spade losers and one off.

The winning line is to win the second trump in dummy and finesse Spades, getting to ruff one and still having time to establish the Diamond discard. Of course if the Spade finesse fail the defence can knock out your Ace of Diamonds and you go two down, so now I'm not sure what is best.

Anyway I tried not to let this rattle me, although I did knock a bidding box on the floor shortly afterwards.

As fatigue set in my main bridge lesson was in discards, especially when you are defending an opposing 1NT or 3NT and declarer is obviously going to make it (once there were eight running Clubs in dummy) and you have to throw more cards away then you want to. Twice in the last set I gave away extra overtricks, but made up for it with some spirited bidding and doubles.

Podium finish next time.