Last night Anna and I played in a Realbridge match against Bonnyton, in Glasgow Division 1. Afterwards, Anna said she thought we might be Division 2 players. We lost the match 15-1 overall, although it was fairly close on our table.
The opponents made several 24 point 3NT games, did better on the distributional hands (we missed the sacrifices), and benefitted when we underbid a couple of hands at the end. Overall it was quite a long evening, with a delayed start and a further delay while one of their team went to look for an iPad charger - turns out he was in Tenerife, hence he was the only one playing in a vest.
But amongst the 24 boards we had at least three or four triumphs. This was the best of them.
Playing our weak NT system I opened the West hand a natural 1C. Anna replied 3C, which for us is 10-12 with Club support. She has a strange hand, and maybe should bid something different, but I'm not sure what. As we tend to do when we have a good minor fit, I bid 3NT.
North lead a small Heart (the 5). I was a bit worried about my lack of a Diamond stop, but dummy has them well covered. In fact Spades are the issue. South won the opening lead with the Ace of Hearts and I dropped my Jack of Hearts. A great ruse. South continued with Hearts. I hastily took the King and 11 more tricks in the minors for 3NT+3.
Afterwards North claimed the Spade switch was obvious, but I like to think my deceptive Jack of Hearts (looking like someone with JT or making KJ) fooled South into continuing Hearts. This was the full hand:
You can see that on the other table our opponents played 5C-1, perhaps a sounder contract but much easier for the defence to take their three tricks. In the other match 5C made when the defence tried three rounds of Spades, and 3NT made on another Heart lead and continuation.
