Ukraine Sim Pairs at Bawburgh

On Wednesday afternoon Anna and I returned to Bawburgh for a special event - the Ukraine Sim Pairs. After playing very little (and not at all face-to-face) this was our third session of the holiday, and we were well prepared. Anna even brought her own decaff tea bags.

 

In the first round we had a sit-out, and were then immediately faced with a strong pair playing a strong Club system. I was about to remind Anna of our defence to the Strong Club (which I was certain she'd forgotten) when I realised I'd already looked at my cards, so said nothing. 

Throughout the afternoon we were sharp, with only a few little blunders. On the one below the opponents bid aggressively to a borderline game, and I made a very poor lead to help them make it:

	Danny		Anna
W	N	E	S
			1NT
2♥	2♠	3♥	3♠
4♥	-	-	-
-	-

Anna opened 1NT and West was right in with 2♥. Anna and I have discussed what to do when they interfere with our 1NT and my 2♠ just shows a weak hand has Spades. When East competed Anna went on to 3♠, but West had no problem bidding the game.

With me having 6 points and Anna 12-14, and the opponents inching to game, it was obvious they didn't have a lot to spare. That calls for a safe lead. However, I went for something different. Looking at the North hand, what do you think is the worst possible opening lead?

I carefully selected the KC. I hoped this would give me a good chance of a ruff if Anna had the Ace, or at least would be safe if Anna had the Queen.

Declarer (Brian Bedwell) won in hand and immediately tackled trumps, leading from his hand. This gave up the chance of finessing, but was surely the right play expecting my lead to be a singleton, and knowing that he could make 4♥ this way. 

Not surprisingly no one else found that lead, but around the room 4H still made on Diamond and Spade leads. In fact game is still pretty safe on a Spade lead (for example), as South will probably play low. To beat the game South needs to win the Ace of Spades and return a Club, declarer finesses and loses, North returns a Club, and then when in with the Ace of Hearts South gives partner a Club ruff. I'm not sure we would have managed that (and in fact declarer can still prevail by refusing the Club finesse).

That was our worst board scoring 25%. Everything else was average or better.

Another blip was one near the end where I played 2♥ incredibly slowly and made +1, but actually I should be making +2 (I played two suits in the wrong order, costing two tricks, then recovered one with an endplay. Anna said it was agony watching, and felt like apologising to the opposition).

With good play and lots of luck we finished on 74%. 

Since this was a Sim Pairs our scores were compared with those in many other bridge clubs (including in Switzerland and South Africa) and moderated down to 71.68%. This was slightly annoying as the top pair (out of 600+) was on 71.80%. If I'd have just made 2H+2 we'd have been top.