I was well prepared for the match, as it started at 1930 and I thought 1900. The first few boards John and I got off to a great start, defeating 3NT then making our own 4♥. But as so often happens when you play good people, the exact same thing happened at the other table.
Then we got our first break, when the opponents bid to 6♠. I was feeling pretty pleased with my ♠JT63 and in fact there were more problems for declarer, and it finished two down for +11 IMPs. John and I kept a pretty good card, except for two misadventures. I pushed a bit hard resulting in 4♥-1, then we both overbid on this one:
I'm not sure why I opened the bidding. Perhaps because I was quite pleased with making a good 2♠ on the board before? I wonder if I overbid following a good result, and underbid following a bad one.
My 1♥ opening was not a success. John chose exactly the wrong moment to be optimistic and bid 2♣, which for us is game forcing. There's now no recovery, and 4♥ was the best we could hope for. We avoided 3NT with no Diamond stopper, but still had to lose three Diamonds, and when North cleverly lead a fourth round of Diamonds I was down two, losing a further two tricks in trumps.
I should say North was Liz Commins from England, and her partner was David Stevenson. This was very exciting for me, as he wrote the excellent Law & Ethics letters page in Bridge magazine, which was my favourite bit, hearing his no nonsense put-downs "I've very little sympathy for either side...".
To compound our losses on the board above our team-mates (Paul and Gints) played in 1NT by South. On their table East sensibly passed but South opened, so not a good board for opening light.
The last board of the first half was our highlight:
John's 1NT rebid shows 12-14, after which my 2♠ was natural and game forcing. After John bid 2NT I nearly signed off in 3NT, but thought I was worth one more go with 3♦. 4♦ then set Diamonds as trumps, and the redouble I think showed the Ace of Hearts. At this point I tried to sign off in 5♦, but John recognised the power of his hand (great controls) and raised me to 6♦.
I got the ♥K lead, and assessed the prospects. I have 11 top tricks (6 Diamonds, 1 Heart, 2 Clubs, 2 Spades) so need one more. This could come from a Spade ruff if trumps are 2-2, a long Spade if Spades are 3-3, a high Spade if the Queen or Jack is doubleton, or a Spade ruff even if neither trumps or Diamonds split if the hand with the long Diamond also has the long Spade. So overall, prospects were good.
I drew one trump then played two round of Spades. When North split her honours I was home, though with trumps 2-2 I'm always making. The other table played 5♦+1 so we got +11 IMPs, and ended the first half up by 22.
In the second half I confess to having something of a slump. I tried to avoid it, but it came anyway. Not sure if it's because Anna dragged me up Dumgoyne in the morning, I'd just had my second vaccination, it was getting late, or just not used to playing lots of difficult boards (probably that one). We had three boards in the middle where the opponents bid a slam, we overbid a slam, we missed a slam. An expensive trilogy. This was the opposition slam, which impressed me with the speed of the play:
After the transfer the 3♠ was a super-accept, based on three good trumps. This was enough for West to drive to slam. John found the best Spade lead, and looking at my hand I thought it might be down. I have a sure-trump trick to come, and the King of Spades too? Sadly not. Declarer rose with the Ace of Spades, played off two top trumps, then used the Diamonds to discard Spades. 6♥=.
We lost the second half of the match by 20 IMPs, to hang on for a 2 IMPs win. This gives us just enough Victory Points to vault up the table to third place, a good result seeing as we only averaged about 11/20 per game.
Congratulations to Gipson on winning the league (again?)
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