Scottish Cup Plate Round 1

Our inexperienced team scored a surprise win against Fiona Greenwood's quartet in the first round of the plate. I would say we were somewhat fortunate, with a few misplayed hands still making, a successful gambling 3NT, and our team-mate miscounting his points and jumping to an unbeatable 3NT.

The first half, against Fiona and Julia Palmer was very enjoyable, and we emerged 3 IMPs up. It felt like the second half was much harder work. It may have been as we were playing a pair with transfers over 1♣, because it was approaching 11 pm, or just because we weren't getting any good hands. When I picked up this one I wanted to make the most of it:

Of course I opened 1♥ and had no hesitation in rebidding 3♥ (if Anna had responded e.g. 1NT I might have tried 3NT). When dummy came down I counted 10 tricks, carefully counted them again, then concluded that this one was in the bag, which was good news as we'd been playing for nearly four hours. The defence (Andrew Symonds and Iain Taylor) was good - they took their three Diamonds then West played the fourth Diamond. When your only likely source of tricks is trumps then giving a ruff and discard is often correct. Here I had no choice but to ruff high and hope that trumps were 3-2. My solid contract wasn't looking quite so secure now.

As it turns out trumps were 5-0, and I had to go two down. Ruffing high had cost an extra undertrick, but is always the right thing to do as often it lets you make the contract.

On the other table our defenders began with three Diamonds, but didn't continue them so just got four tricks and 4♥-1. So not only did I not make the contract, I lost IMPs on the board.

Enough other things went our way, and we must have done a few things right as we won the secod half by 29 IMPs, and won the match by 32 IMPs. Bring on Team Harry Smith next Tuesday.