Return to Buchanan Club

John and I made a return to face to face bridge on Monday with a most welcome game at the Buchanan. It's been over a year since either of us played a real match, and it was great to be back at the club. It was still light outside and with a cool breeze, perfect conditions for bridge!

As usual, John and I handicapped ourselves by playing his system (or maybe it's oringally his partner's Frazer's system). It's not a bad system, but is fairly unfamiliar to me. I spent much of the week before reading it, and even made a couple of online quizzes to test my understanding. On the second board I bid 3♥ to show a Club singleton, which to my surprise John alerted as a Diamond singleton!

Despite the misunderstanding I ended in a reasonable 6♥. In fact, without the misunderstanding I may well have ended up in 7♥, and six was high enough. The small slam made exactly for 73%, as most people were in it.

In my featured deal below we made a lot of tricks

=	John Danny W N E S - 1♣ - 1♦ - 3♣ - 3♠ - 3NT - - -

I had the big East hand and opened 1♣. John replied 1♦, and I thought about a speculative 3NT but went for the more sensible 3♣. When John rebid 3♠ I went for the NT game.

I got a Heart lead, and immediately looked to the Club suit. If Clubs are 3-2 I just have to lose one Club, and if one defender had exactly Queen-Ten then I can win all the Clubs. Even if they are 4-1 without an honour dropping I still have a good chance of nine tricks (four Spades, three Hearts, two Clubs). Is there any benefit in leading low to the Jack? I couldn't think of any, so played Clubs from the top and waas rewarded with all 13 tricks.

We got 77% as although nearly everyone played 3NT, some made only 12 tricks.