On Monday in the National League John and I had a good game, beating Team Goodman. In fact, I think more accurately our team-mates had a good game, but still it was nice to be on the winning side. I found it very challenging when Iain Sime and Brian Short were defenders, as everything seemed to go wrong for me as declarer. Tonight it was more straight forward in the Glasgow League Division Two, and we rattled through the boards with me declaring about half of them. Playing total points is also the most relaxing format, as you know that overtricks really don't matter, so lots of early claims.
Perhaps due to complacency or fatigue here's one near the end I could have done better on:
I got the obvious Diamond lead and ducked twice before winning the Ace. This was the same on all four tables. I then lead a Heart up to the Queen. West played low, but after a long enough pause to make me pretty sure he had the Ace. I cashed my four Clubs, East throwing one more Heart. I then led a Heart from dummy and the Nine appeared from East. At this point if I'm really on the ball I can work out the whole suit. I don't think West would have ducked from ♥AJx, so East must have the Jack, hence West is down to a bare Ace. Playing a low from hand should produce the Ace, and I've got 7 tricks (and luckily they can't cash out in Spades).
Of course, I did the normal thing and played the King of Hearts, reasoning I might still make my Ten of Hearts in dummy. I didn't, the defence took three Diamonds, two Spades and two Hearts for 1NT-1.
Every other table made 1NT=, after West took the Ace of Heart straight away, cashed the long Diamond, and returned a Spade, East greedily grabbing the Ace-King and giving the contract.
Despite this minor mistake we were pretty good otherwise and got a few big swings on our table, stealing a few games from our opponents. Our match (along with Colin & Sheena) finished +1580, the other table (with David & Heather and Neil & Anna) was +940. That meant a 12-4 win
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