After a heavy loss in Round 1 on to our second match, against the very strong England team. They have a somewhat more advanced setup than us, with a professional bridge player as their coach, and an assistant coach too which no other team has. They also have a reserve pair who got a Bronze medal at the European Championship, as someone in my team pointed out to me. Anything other than a 20-0 loss would be counted as a win.
That's the setup over, on to the bridge. We had a good start, with two flat boards. Then England gained a little, but we stayed in touch. The boys were bidding their games, and defending tightly.
Even better, we picked up a game swing. Aidan made 9 tricks here, no other declarer did:
Michael got a Diamond lead and immediately ruffed another Diamond. He took his Aces and crossed back to hand. It's now time to play trumps. I've never discussed this suit combination, but Michael instinctively got it right. He lead the ♣K. This gains when the Queen is singleton (as it is here). Playing a low one hoping the Ace is singleton doesn't work, as if the Ace is singleton his partner still has ♣Qx and gets another trick. Result: 4♣+1.
Of course this techincally correct play was found by the England declarer at the other table too, and the board was flat. But two well played hands I consider a good result.
Finally, a simple pleasure:
Against 3NT Michael lead a low Spade and they soon wrapped up five Spade tricks, with the Ace of Hearts to come for 3NT-2. This was a fast table, and this result came in first. I knew it was going to be a good board. On the other table we played 4♦-1 to win a couple of IMPs.
The good results kept coming in. There was a further highlight of Kevin making 5♥x. On the other table Harry declined to double 5♥ and gained his team 5 IMPs. But in fact on every board we were good, and ran out 26-15 winners. Restricting England to just 15 IMPs was a fantastic achievement. The score translated to a 13-7 win.
These are the running scores:
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