They've stretched to bid 3NT so we've a good chance of beating it. I led a safe Diamond and waited for our tricks to come in. We couldn't stop declarer setting up the Clubs, but he's still a bit short. Three Clubs, three Diamonds, one Spade and one Heart. On the last Club it's crunch time. I have a hand full of winners, two Hearts, a Diamond to come, and my King of Spades. I threw a Diamond, and John had already thrown one, so declarer promptly crossed to his hand and took two more Diamond tricks.
If I bare the King of Spades, declarer surely finesses and goes down. My counterpart on the other table did exactly that. So it's well played by their declarer (Martin Diamond) and their defender (David Shenkin), for a well earned 10 IMPs.
There were four more game swings their way, all of which involved competitive high-level auctions. This was the most embarrassing, where I conjured an extra loser:
John's 2NT shows a good raise, after which 5♥ is clear with nothing but trumps. This got doubled.
It looked like five off, for -800. Losing two Spades, two Diamonds and the Club finesse, which I thought was sure to fail.
West cashed the top two Clubs, but was then afraid to lead a Diamond away from the King, so continued trumps. Could I take advantage? No. I finessed Clubs, but in a muddled attempt to confuse the opposition played the Nine and Jack on the same trick. I was assuming the Club finesse would fail and didn't want West to switch to Diamonds. But when the finesse won, I've not blown too many high cards, and couldn't win the fourth Club. So it was 5♥x-2, rather than 5♥x-1.
The other table had pushed to 5♠-1, so the board was already lost. But going off an extra trick meant -12 IMPs, rather than -9 IMPs.
That was my low point. Our partnership low point came on this board, where John had the misfortunte to weigh in at exactly the wrong time.
John's 4♥ shows some sort of very distributional two-suiter, and weak as he didn't bid before. When East doubled this I foolishly weighed in with 5♣. It was only when John corrected to 5♦ I realised he obviously had the other two suits. I corrected to 5♠, which was a much worse trump suit.
I realised 5♠ was going to be bad, and it was damage limitation. I played to keep trump control and set up the Diamonds, which I achieved, but only after I'd lost a lot of tricks for 5♠x-5.
Our new team-mates Alex Adamson and Derek Sanders made a solid 4♥, but that was largely irrelevant opposite our -1100 and we lost 12 IMPs.
There was another board where I had 20 points and propelled John into an awful 4♥, but I think that's enough rue for now. We lost the match by 33 IMPs to collect just 3 VPs.
On the plus side my team of High School of Glasgow pupils playing in the SBU Bronze League are doing well.
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