Walberswick Bridge Club

Last Tuesday afternoon Anna and I returned to Walberswick Bridge Club. It only runs every other Tuesday, and we only play every other year, but we were still recognised by a few of the locals. It's my favourite local club to play at. This time we decided to walk there from Southwold. We thought we were going to be late but found that Google Maps doesn't know about the path alongside the harbour, and we were actually there with time to spare.

Anna and I did pretty well, though I messed up the defence in one hand. We had set up some winning Diamonds, but I forgot they were winning, and rather than cash them played a Club. The look of surprise on Anna's face told me I might have done something foolish, and declarer duly took the rest. Apart from this we had a couple of minor issues, such as the bidding on this tricky one below:

Love All E deal ♠ x ♥ J T x x ♦ Q J x x x x ♣ x x ♠ J ♥ A K x x ♦ T x ♣ A K Q x x x

Danny Anna W N E S 1♠ x 2♠ 3♦ - 4♣ - - -

You can see that we both have Hearts, but didn't bid them. After East opened Anna was too strong to overcall so doubled. West bid a (very light) 2♠, and I decided that I was worth a bid. I thought with six of them I ought to bid my Diamonds. Anna now bid her Clubs, and was left to play there. With the Clubs splitting and the ♥Q doubleton 4♣ was no problem, but 4♥ would have been better.

As this was the first round we didn't have any scores to compare with, but it seems that lots of North-South pairs found this one hard to bid. And with 11 Spades between them actually East-West often won the contract, with 3♠= a common score for East-West.

On the other board that I remember (there were no hand records) Anna and I were both a bit too aggressive in the bidding:

Game all E deal ♠ A K x x ♥ K x x ♦ x ♣ J T 8 x x ♠ x ♥ Q T x x x ♦ x x x ♣ K Q x x

Danny Anna W N E S 1♦ - 3♦ x - 4♥ - - -

The auction started with opponents bidding 1♦-3♦. With the North hand I risked a double, even though I'm rather light and only have three Hearts. Anna decided she was worth a 4♥ response. This confused me as she couldn't muster up a 1♥ overcall, but you can see that even opposite my light double 4♥ has play (with only 18 point between the hands). However, it was not to be as the defence was accurate and took the Ace of Diamonds then Ace of Clubs and a ruff. Even though the ♥J was in the right place four losers meant one off.

Although -100 felt like a bad score, especially as we might have been allowed to play it in 3♥ it was about average as East-West were comfortably making nine or ten tricks in Diamonds.

Overall we were the top pair with 68%.