Team Rowan vs Morrisons

Last night was the final league match of the season. I had my mind on the Peggy Bayer, the upcoming Junior Home Internationals for which I am the non-playing captain of the Scotland team, and was hoping for some nice quiet relaxing bridge. That didn't happen though, and in the first few boards we gave away two game swings then got one back bidding a 23 point 3NT. I knew it was 23 points but bid it anyway - everything was onside and Anna made +1.

In our house I play upstairs, and four times in the first hour I had to go and see Zoe, who was most definitely not asleep.

Things failed to settle down with some distributional hands, and big decisions. Here's one that did go smoothly for us:

I have a flat 18 point South hand, which doesn't feel like a great hand. I decided to rebid it 2NT anyway, on the policy of always bidding to the max at aggregate. Anna bid Checkback Stayman and I showed three Spades. At this point she bid 4♣, and I had to think.

Probably Anna is cue-bidding, having set Spades as trumps. But Clubs is my suit, so her bid could be natural with a 5-4-0-4 hand. I ruled that out as extremely unlikely and cuebid my Hearts. That's what Anna wanted to hear and she bid the slam.

East predictably lead a top Diamond, immediately finding the weakness. On any other lead declarer can afford to lose a trump and still collect 4 Spades, 3 Hearts, 4 Clubs and 1 Diamond. On this lead there are still 12 tricks there, but the risk of losing two as well. So it looks like the slam comes down to guessing trumps - but Anna found a better line.

Her plan was to cash the top Spades, then play off winners hoping to discard two losing Diamonds. This works if Clubs are 3-3 (or 4-2 with the long Club hand having the last trump), or the Queen of trumps drops. It probably needs trumps 3-2 but you might need that anyway.

Anna set about her plan playing two top Spades. As it happens the Queen popped up straight away, so that was 13 tricks.

Three of the four tables played 6♠, all making, one played 3NT.

Overall we won the match 12-4. I think that means we will finish the season in 3rd or 4th place in Division 2.