Outside the playing area are a couple of rooms where people congregate around laptops looking at the current matches. Just now a friendly Norwegian man showed me how to get the running scores, so I can include some early highlights of our match against Estonia. There are already lots of big swings coming in
What contract would you like to be in here for North-South?
Estonia chose 3NT, along with most of the teams. This has 7 top tricks but with the Hearts blocked you
are struggling to make any more. Our East (Donald) led a fourth highest ♠8. This gives declarer his eighth trick, but as long as the defence is careful he is stuck on eight. 3NT-1 was a good score for Scotland.
On the other table Lydia and Jack for Scotland got to 4♥. This makes even if the defence get a Diamond ruff, as Hearts are 3-3.
At this point we were flying high (losing 11-10), but a run of bad boards were to follow:
6♠ makes a long as you don't get a Club lead. Estonia were in it, and got a very reasonable Diamond lead from North. Declarer was able to ruff, draw trumps (losing one) then discard all three of West's losing Clubs on the Hearts.
On the other table after a competitive auction Donald and Michael settled for 5♠.
Then our other pair had chances to bid a slam. South (Lydia) opened 1♠, and West made a weak jump overcall of 3♦. North (Jack) bid a forcing 3♥, raised to 4♥.
This made 12 tricks as the Heart finesse worked (as expected after West's pre-empt). The opposition bidding has made life difficult; North has useful cards in Spades and Clubs but has shown his hand, South has a good hand but is void in partner's suits.
On the other table the Estonians didn't reach slam either. North made a trap pass of the 3♦ bid and when South re-opened he passed, scoring 1400 for 5♦x-4.
How about this one?
On the other table the Estonians didn't reach slam either. North made a trap pass of the 3♦ bid and when South re-opened he passed, scoring 1400 for 5♦x-4.
How about this one?
West opened 1♥ and our North (Jack) overcalled 1♠ and East a weak 3♥. South (Lydia) bid Blackwood and got a response showing only one keycard, so signed off. On the one hand you can't expect (or particularly want) partner to have the Ace of Hearts, so if you bid Blackwood you should probably go to 6♠ on finding one keycard. On the other hand North has a very nice doubleton Diamond and King of Clubs which fit perfectly, so maybe stopping in 5♠ is right.
Estonia of course sailed into 6♠ in an unopposed auction, after North opened 2♠ showing 5.
In the goody bag we got there were two vouchers for 5 Euros each to spend at the bookstore on site. I've offered mine as a prize for any pair that bids and makes a slam. Doesn't anyone want them? After five matches we have had five slams bid against us, of which four made. We are yet to bid any!
Update: after storming back and winning the second half comfortably we lost 68-40. I had originally recorded it as a 20-0 loss but actually we get a few well-earned VPs. And both of our pairs bid and made slams!
Total so far: 12.14 VPs (17th place)
The leaders are France and Sweden on about 80 VPs out of 100.
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