Peggy Bayer 2023 - Round 6 Scotland vs England

Today I went down for breakfast a full two hours before my team. Twice the hotel staff asked me to move into the lounge as soon as I was finished eating, as they were very busy today. To keep the table I therefore had to have multiple breakfasts, which actually I was planning to do anyway.

With the crunch match against England starting at 10 am, the first of my team arrived at 0930. They weren't late, just playing it cool. Here's me in the lounge.

I watched the first couple of boards. On the first the English declarer had the interesting puzzle of playing 3NT with a Diamond suit as below, with no entries to the long suit.

AKJxxxx     xx

With plenty of tricks to play with, one solution is to lead the Jack from hand. Instead declarer finessed the Jack, which could fail if there is Qxx offside. But today there was Qx onside so everything worked. 

We are currently 22-11 down to England.

Update: things got worse and we lost 62-24. From a viewing perspective most of the losses came in the last few boards, which was demoralising. Here is a missed opportunity, as Scotland got to slam missed at the other table:

6S was played by West. There is work to be done, as you have a potential loser in Spades, Diamonds and Clubs. The Club loser is the most subtle, and the English did well to lead a Club. I would suggest an immediate Diamond finesse (of the Queen), followed by a Spade finesse, then cross to Diamond Ace and finesse trumps again. Making 6 Spades, 2 Hearts, 2 Diamonds, 2 Clubs. But then, I can see all the cards.

Our declarer went one off. I don't have the play details, but there are many ways of losing two tricks (most likely a trump and a Club).

That loss puts us still second but well adrift of England in the standings, and needing to bounce back with a win against Ireland to consolidate second place.