An easy 4S?

I've once again entered a team into the SBU Bronze League, an excellent event run on Wednesday evenings. This season it's been a struggle getting a team, and we've actually forfeited two matches for the first time ever. I've played myself several times, which is always a pleasure, but can be sometimes be difficult when I've got the children, and once I had to drive off to get Alex while I was dummy.

Here is an interesting hand from last week's match, an excellent win against 6NoChumps:

We open a Weak NT and don't play Stayman or transfers. I wasn't prepared to pass that South hand so overbid with 3♠. Luckily partner had a maximum with three Spades and bid the game.

West paused for a long time, before passing this out and leading Diamonds. Only after I ruffed the second Diamond did I realise I might have just made a mistake. What if trumps are 5-0 (explaining West's long pause)? By ruffing I have now shortened my trumps to less than West, so now I'm possibly going to lose control of the hand. Perhaps I should have just let the defence win that second Diamond (throwing a losing Heart), then if they keep playing Diamonds I can handle it by ruffing in dummy.

As it happens, trumps were 3-2 and it was fine. I made 4♠=, a good result duplicated at the other table (when they also didn't both ducking the second Diamond).

Looking at it more closely, I think you may still be in trouble if Spades are 5-0 and you duck that second Diamond. If the defender with 5 Spades ducks the first two rounds of trumps, then wins the third and plays Diamonds (once there are none left in dummy) you still end up shortening your trumps. So I think you'd still fail if trumps are 5-0, though not by as many tricks.

I think the point of the hand is this: when it looks easy consider what could go wrong (trumps 5-0), if you can do anything about it (duck the second Diamond), and if it's worth doing so (not sure).

Buchanan Bridge Club

I was standby last Monday, which I do about once a year. This time I got a game, with Harry Connolly. I agreed to his system, including Gemmel discards, which I can find no reference to online. 

We did OK. I made a few bold bids which generally paid off, and only one slip in defence.

Dummy has ♥AQTxx and leads a low one. You have ♥Jxx. What do you play? I instinctively played low. My partner won the trick with the King, and that was the only Heart we got. The whole suit was:

	AQTxx
Kxx		Jxx
	xx

Of course declarer could have finessed earlier, but had got stuck in dummy. So when he lead from table I should have played my Jack, which costs nothing and gains a trick here. 

Overall we finished on 57%, good enough for second in our section (a bit lower when combined with the online games).

This was an amusing deal:

On our table I was North and opened 1♥ (playing five card majors and strong NT). Harry sitting South replied 1NT and played there. West led the King of Clubs, ducked, then switched to a Diamond. East won his King and ran the Hearts. In the end declarer only got his three Aces.

Amazingly, with only 18 high card points between them, East-West can make 3NT, but of course no one bid it. 

Our score of 1NT-4 was worth 8%. I don't think declarer can do any better, expect for perhaps responding 1♠, after which I would have rebid 1NT and had to play the doomed contract instead. 

Sole Bay Bridge Club

As part of our holiday double-bill Anna and I also had a game at Sole Bay Bridge Club, right in Southwold. It's just behind the post-office and I couldn't remember quite where so we were slightly late, but luckily were making up a table so were welcome.

I was mostly dummy, as Anna was mostly declarer. I had decided in advance that I would 'go for everything', meaning I'd always take the risky action. So I bid an Unusual 2NT with a slightly unsuitable hand, underled an Ace, and even under-ruffed when I thought it might endplay my opponent (it didn't).

My boldest action was this one, when Anna bid an invitational 4NT and I replied 6♣. This accepts the invite while also suggesting a trump suit. Anna hadn't seen this before. She had ♣AQxxx and wasn't sure I could also have Clubs, but wisely passed.

Love all S deal ♠ A K x ♥ A x x x ♦ Q ♣ A Q x x x ♠ Q x ♥ K x ♦ A x x x ♣ K T x x x

In 6♣ Anna got a Heart lead and drew trumps in two rounds. There are 11 top tricks, and with a couple of Diamond ruffs in hand that was an easy 6♣ +1. This was a top score as no one else was in slam.

In 6NT you are likely to finish with just 11 tricks, unless you get a friendly Diamond lead from the King. 

Blyth Valley Bridge Club

With the Summer holidays Anna and I made our comeback to live bridge, with an afternoon session in Walberswick. 

On our first board I had a tricky 1NT. I needed two tricks from a suit of 

♦ KQ65

♦ 98

I led up to my honours and the Queen held. Pleased, I returned to hand and led up to my other honour. West played low again. At this point I should have realised that East held the Ace of Diamonds (and had made an excellent duck the first time). Because there's no way that West would have ducked twice, as no one ever ducks twice. That's the lesson I learned here. 

Luckily, Anna was on top form. Once, when I was dummy, she delayed drawing trumps to set up her side-suit. This paid off well when trumps split 4-1 and the side-suit 4-2. Her score of 4♠+2 was a top.

I made another error misreading the defenders, and one bidding bodge.
With the hand below, I opened 1H. Anna bid 1S. Your bid:

♠Axx ♥Axxxx ♦Kxxx ♣x

This is the perfect hand for 2♠, a rare three-card raise. My hand would be a nice dummy with a singleton Club, and Anna could surely scramble eight tricks in Spades cross-ruffing.

But I bid 2♦ and went one off.

Anna may not remember the hands but reminds me that I delayed the start of the penultimate round, when I very generously made two cups of tea for my opponents.

Scotland at the Euros

At the European Bridge Championship in Denmark last week the Scottish Open, Senior and Mixed team fared little better than the national football team. Can the youngsters do any better? They are currently in Poland, competing against some very good U26 teams.

Scotland's six are Kevin Ren & Michael Kennedy, Jamie Day & Kajetan Granops, Rufus Behr & Tamsin Munro. Two of them are former pupils of my High School of Glasgow Bridge Club, although the system they now play is a long way from the one I taught them (personally I think a weak NT would surprise the other countries and be quite effective, but no one else does).

In their first match Scotland claimed an impressive 20-0 win against Estonia. It took me a while to find Scotland in the table as they were right at the top. They followed that up with a great win against Germany, before sliding to losses against Israel, Ireland and Poland, finishing yesterday with a comfortable win against Bye.

Full results at http://db.eurobridge.org/repository/competitions/24wroclaw/microsite/Results.htm

Kevin and Michael are guilty of overbidding sometimes. However, here's a rare board against Ireland where they stayed out of slam and were a bit unlucky as the way the cards lie it makes easily:

In 6H there are 10 top tricks, so you need two from Clubs. With South having the Ace-Jack that works nicely. I think to succeed you need the Jack of Clubs to drop in three rounds, or a ruffing finesse with the Ten-Nine of Clubs. Alternatively, you can try and ruff a Diamond in dummy, after throwing one on the Spades. This needs Diamonds 3-3 or South to have the Nine of Hearts (so works here too).

So not a brilliant slam, but it's got chances.

This is the Scotland auction. I think 2H must have been Kokish (showing a good hand with Hearts, and forcing 2S), then 3D showed Hearts and Diamonds. East's 3H bid showed a non-minimum (could have jumped to game with a weaker hand), and West signed off.

On the other table the Irish East directly supported Hearts then they cuebid then Blackwood.

On 18 tables 6H was bid eight times, with the rest in 4H (and one table in 3NT).

Good luck to the team today when they take on Finland, Netherlands, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

Update: after a great start Scotland U26 slipped heavily to finish in 19th and last place. The results I looked at there were only a few real errors, mostly just a lot of misjudgments. In the crucial final match against Austria this was typical:

Kajetan sitting South opened 1C, and the Austrian West overalled 1D. Kevin sitting North bid 2C. This is probably not the right bid playing five-card majors (where the 1C opening could be short), but I think it's well understood that raising there could be very weak. South blasted 3NT though, and with the cards sitting badly it was not a success.

On the 18 tables in the U26 no one else ventured as high as 3NT, with the best results for North-South from playing in Spades.

Our one gain in that match (we lost 60-11) was when Kajetan was one of the few declarers to make 4H on the deal below:

I think it just comes down to guessing trumps - choosing to lead the Queen on the second round rather than cashing the Ace (unless you get a helpful Club lead). Our declarer got it right, to avoid a 20-0 match whitewash. Of the 18 tables the 8 playing in 3NT all made it too.

The top eight below qualify for the World Championship:

I watched some of Netherlands and Israel and they were very good. They knew what they were doing, didn't try too hard to win IMPs and played the cards safely.

In the U31 event Scotland finished 11th out of 13 (France won).

Finally, to fit the narrative of Scotland losing and complaining about hard luck, here's an excellent double of 4H you'd never expect to make:

West opens 1H and after lots of bidding between West and North, West bids 4H. North is delighted to double, and makes a sensible lead of the Ace of Diamonds. North is never able to attack Spades, so declarer only loses two trumps and the Ace of Diamonds. 

The winning lead is a low Diamond (South wins and returns a Spade). But that's never going to happen. A low club from North also works, and is more tempting, but still needs an unlikely Diamond underlead.

Everywhere it was bid 4H made, including when Scotland were doubling the 4H. Bad luck Kevin.

Bridge Friendly - HSOG vs Hutchesons

Today I drove four S4 pupils across Glasgow for a friendly against Hutcheson's Grammar school. For slightly complicated reasons I had my six-year old boy with me (who doesn't play bridge, just Uno) so I didn't watch any of the action. I know the final result though, in an eight board teams match we lost 11-22.

Our pairs seemed happy enough with their play, but maybe lost out on a few part scores.

    

Peggy Bayer Match 10 - Northern Ireland

Our final match is against Northern Ireland, who we beat comfortably last time. While they get going, my reflections on the whole weekend:

- Great meeting in person, rather than online. Everyone agrees about this
- It would be nice if the same set of boards were used in the two tournaments, so that we could all chat together about the deals
- The bridge has been of quite a variable standard. I think in this situation the focus should be on encouraging the newer players, which it has been
- Hotel has been good, apart from the disappointing lunches (for those having the soup)

On this deal Al sitting South played in 4H. We've been working on dealing with losers in your hand (either by ruffing in dummy or throwing on dummy's winners), but here there's no need to do anything. Just draw trumps - 7 Hearts and 4 Spades means 4H+1, a game swing against 2H+3 at the other table (maybe a weak two passed out). 

Later I sat in to watch our East-West pair bid to a very bad 3NT. "I probably should have passed." said West. "Niamh, I hate you." said East. The contract made, but I hope they don't do it again. I'm not going to print the board in case it encourages them.

We won the match comfortably - well done the youngsters!

Final positions in Peggy Bayer (U21)

And in the Junior Camrose (U26)

All that remains is the final dinner and closing ceremony. Each federation has been asked to give a short speech. The other two Scotland coaches approached me and said they thought I should do it. Thanks guys. 

Peggy Bayer Match 9 - Ireland

I've not been following this match at all, as faced with another light lunch of soup (the exact same soup as yesterday) I booked myself into the Sunday Carvery. 

It was magnificent. The beef was a little dry but more than made up for by the turkey. Then I went back to get some of the more pork, and Bobby the chef came back out to carve it for me. Desert was a Bailey's cheesecake and ice cream. I couldn't finish it all.

Looking over the scores now, this board was a good one.

Kevin played 4H as North. One way the defence can beat it is with a Club ruff, another is by setting up a Spade trick. If they do both they get it two off.

But presumably they did neither, and Kevin managed to set up his Diamonds as he made 4H.

On the other table Rachel and Isla bid to 4S East-West. This is an excellent contract, and only needs Diamonds to break kindly. In fact, one of the prepared deals in my classroom in Glasgow is almost exactly like this - although in that one Diamonds are 3-2 and you can make the contract. Here we went one off, but still a good board.

Overall we lost 15-5, a similar score to against Ireland last time, and cementing us in 3rd place out of six overall.  

 

Peggy Bayer Match 8 - Wales

This time we're playing without Kevin - who's going to bid all the games and make them?

Not this guy.

Timon remains on the bench, and it's up to Alexander to take the captain's armband. I sat in to watch the first board. 

The Welsh West opened 1C, and Isla sitting North made a weak jump overcall of 2S. Our system is that we play weak twos, weak jump overcalls, but strong jump shifts opposite partner's opening bid. It makes sense to me.

The Welsh East bid 3D, which ended the auction (I'd play that as forcing, but it was passed out). Our defenders cashed their two Hearts and two Spades and that was 3D=.

On the other table the Welsh South was in a surprising 2NT. West lead a low Club. I've been trying to teach that the defender after dummy should lead dummy's weaker suit ("lead through strength and round to weakness") East has a choice therefore between a Diamond or Heart. Presumably East chose an unlucky Heart, as declarer made 2NT for 6 IMPs to Wales.

Our North-South did well to get to 4S here.

You get a Club lead. The most you can possibly lose is one trick in each suit, so your plan should be to avoid that. First your draw trumps, (either with a finesse or playing the Ace, equal odds). Then the key to the hand is you play Diamonds, setting up a winner to throw away a losing Heart on. It's a textbook hand. 

Unfortunately Wales have read the textbook but we haven't, and lost 12 IMPs here. The match is delicately poised 26-19 in our favour.

Update - we lost.

Peggy Bayer Match 7 - NIBU

If you stay in a hotel for long enough you gradually stop having a massive breakfast and revert to your usual bowl of cereal. Second day and I'm day down to one fry-up plus muesli. 

Today we have Northern Ireland up first, followed by Wales. The three debutants will be playing in both those matches, and in fact Isla has been promoted to be North and look after the 'bridge computer'.

The hotel feels quiet this morning, though all of the team have made it up for breakfast. I'm not sure if it's an Irish thing, but even late last night there were small children running around the lobby and bar. I get nervous on the parents' behalf if I see a five-year-old up after 7 pm. They should be watching Gladiators and getting ready for bed.    

We've taken an early lead against NIBU, with Kevin steering in a 3NT. On the next board, we attempted 4S:

It looks like you lose one Heart, three Diamonds, and one Club, and that's exactly what happened. The defence has to play Clubs at some point though, else declarer can throw a Club on the lucky 13th Diamond. When West has KQJ76 of Clubs that should be easy, and indeed it was two down.

On the other table Isla and Rachel bid tried 3H. With four obvious losers it made exactly. The usual rule when your side is declarer on both tables is that you profit if you make at least one contract, and indeed that was the case here for a 1 IMP gain. 

Turns out that South mistakenly made a weak jump overcall with the South hand - which lead North to bid 4S. The better bid by South is just a 1S overcall I think.

The team brought in a succession of 3NT. They won 20-0. Next up is Wales. 

 

Peggy Bayer - Bonus Speedball

Tonight there was the opportunity to enter the Speedball, a fun tournament played super-fast. The England players had been instructed to form teams with someone from another nation. This was an excellent idea, and might go some way to improving the public relations of the most hated team (from being so successful). 

However, I will be playing with Kevin from our Scotland side. He has been forced to play a simple Acol system in all the matches so far, so I have agreed we will instead play something a bit more complicated, to further handicap us in the limited-time format. My contribution is to insist on playing four weak twos. It will be a triumph if a weak two Clubs bid comes up (and we both remember it). 

I thought it would be a good thing as a coach to play some hands, so I am more sympathetic with the players when they make mistakes, and this did indeed turn out to be the case. The very first card I played was a lead out of turn. I then checked that they were playing Four Hearts. No, it was Four Spades. Making, wasn't it? No, one off. I was all over the place.

On the second board I sharpened up:

EW Vul S deal ♠ - ♥ x x x x x x ♦ x ♣ Q x x x x x ♠ A K x ♥ A Q J x x ♦ K J x x x ♣ -

Kevin Danny W N E S 1♥ x 4♥ - 6♥

I opened 1♥, and after the double when Kevin shot to 4♥, raised to 6♥. After the Club lead I played the Ace of trumps (King didn't fall), used the Ace of Spades to throw a Diamond from dummy and cross-ruffed the rest. It's a strange hand as we've only got 20 points, and in fact most of them aren't useful. The only useful points are those in Hearts and the Ace of Spades.

After that I had visions that we might actually do quite well, and in fact we bid three more slams. 6♣=, 6NT+1, and 7♣x-2 after a Blackwood misunderstanding. But we had so many bad ones too. I messed up the system once, and criminally forgot about our four weak twos when Kevin opened a weak 2♣ and I assumed he was strong

We declared the majority of hands, usually doubled, and usually off. Three times we had an eleven card fit, but bid too high with almost identical distributions and our opponents chose correctly to defend. Two of those misadventures were against my bridge nemesis, the England captain Michael Byrne. The last time we played, at least ten years ago, he also took me three off doubled in 4♠. I wonder if he remembers. Although he's my only nemesis, he may have several nemeses, like a man who is the Best Man at many weddings, but an evil version of that.

In the end despite playing very quickly and bidding a lot we only managed 43.6%. Not very good, but good enough to award myself a consolation pint of Guinness, £6.80.

Later I found out that the English pairs, who had generously agreed to partner players from other countries, had placed large cash wagers on which paiir would finish higher in the final rankings, rather like lords saddling Scotsmen as horses and riding them around the paddock for amusement.

The winning pair were two of the senior coaches, Anne Hassan and Diane Greenwood, who seemed to be taking it far too seriously (an impressive 61%).

I may struggle to get up for breakfast tomorrow.

Peggy Bayer Match 6 - England

With one match left in the day the team looked quite tired. Final push against England, trying not to lose 20-0.

In the interest of letting me go back to my room and change my wet shoes here is the second hand of the match:

England tend to play a lot of hands. In one room the English South played 2S, probably after opening a weak two. He made 10 tricks when everything went nicely. In the other room the English East played 3D-2, presumably when West doubled the 2S opening. That contact went two down, for an early IMP for Scotland.

A few too many boards got away from us, and we lost 18.3-1.7. We have therefore avoided a whitewash once again, and scored fractionally more victory points than the first time we played England.

We remain in 3rd place, though slightly closer to 4th than 2nd now.

Peggy Bayer Match 5 - Northern Ireland

Today it was soup for lunch. Just soup! I was waiting for the rest to come, but that was it. The soup was quite nice, but still somewhat disappointing. It was billed as a light lunch, but no one expected just soup.

I decided to walk half an hour through the countryside to the local shop, so the team had enough to eat. What did they want? "Dairy milk, crisps, and general snacks" they told me. I asked for more details. "Rachel doesn't like Salt and Vinegar crisps, but I do."

When I returned I caught up with the bridge. We did well against Northern Ireland. The highlight was this slam hand:

After South (Rachel) opened 2NT North (Kevin) transferred then drove to 6S. There were no problems in the play.

A couple of boards were played sideways (meaning Scotland declared four times) and had to be cancelled. Once that was sorted we came away with a 17-3 win, cementing 3rd place at half way. 

Peggy Bayer Match 4 - Ireland

My single room is on the second floor of the hotel, next to the executive rooms that have their own name. The hotel uses modern keycards, and I've had a bit of trouble using mine. Last night I couldn't get into my room, until a member of the Welsh team helped me out. "That's my room" he told me. "You're next door".

It's a long way from my room to the bridge area, especially as there are now some out-of-bounds corridors. The bridge group have been bumped for a more important event - the kids Disney disco. Looks fun, I can hear mostly Frozen songs and some from Moana.

Here's a board against Ireland that I like the look of. The first result that came in was our South declarer finished in 4Hx-2. A good result non-vulnerable. On the other table East made 4Sx. At the moment we have a narrow lead, and I have a hazelnut croissant.  

We lost 17-36 IMPs for a 5-15 VP loss. Not bad.

Peggy Bayer Match 3 - Wales

After a big loss and a big win we currently sit third out of six. Big test this morning against Wales, with whom we are similarly matched.

Current scores at https://bridgeresults.org/o/2024_peggy_bayer/2024_peggy_bayers.asp

Whatever happens today, I was the real winner this morning as I arrived at breakfast at 8 am and stayed until nearly 10 am, taking in two full Irish breakfasts, a light continental and pocketing an apple and croissant for later.

I'm now staying in the bridge room to watch the start of the first match live, and help with the Bridgemate scoring. Unfortunately, the sixth member of our team is also hanging around, hoping to get a game I think.

On my first board our most inexperienced declarer found herself in 3NT. 

The auction was textbook - East opened 1NT (12-14), West raised to 3NT.

Declarer got the King of Hearts lead, which she took with the Ace instead of ducking (we'll discuss that later), then brought home the Diamonds to make her contract. Game in the bag!

On the other table Wales were only in 2NT. If the online scores are to be believed, South led the 6 of Hearts, a weird choice.

I think the best lead for South is a low Spade. Declarer wins the Queen of Spades from dummy, then I think the best play is a low Diamond from both hands. But that's all hypothetical, the important thing is Scotland got a game swing and are leading the match.

This was an interesting play hand, in 2H from West.

The defence begin with two Clubs and a Spade from South.

Our declarer, Niamh, did well. She won South's low Spade with the Ten, drew only three rounds of trumps, then ruffed a Club. She came to one Club, 5 Hearts and 2 Spades. There's one more trick in there if you only leave yourself enough trumps in dummy to ruff two Clubs (or set up a Diamond trick), but I'm not arguing with 2H=.

On the other table Kevin pulled off some magic as North to make 4S. This looks like a decent contract, until you notice there are two trump losers, and the Diamonds are badly placed. A Diamond lead from East is helpful, but he got a Club lead. I expect the way to make it is still to play diamonds, and West ruffs with natural trump tricks.

The two top teams, England and Ireland, are comfortably winning their matches, but the English declarer went down in the same optimistic 4S contract.

We won 20-0 overall to keep us solidly in third overall.

I've been encouraging my team to take their time when they see dummy - at least two minutes. The highlight of the match for me was when a Welsh defender was waiting for declarer to finish thinking and said "I forgot who made the opening lead, it was so long ago." That's a good sign.

Peggy Bayer Match Two - NIBU

After the high of not-completely-losing to England the real test comes now against a similarly inexperienced Northern Ireland team. As the host they have two teams in the tournament, and we're up against the outfit known as NIBU. 

It's getting late on Friday night but with a team of five only one of us gets to go to bed (not me). Isla has been woken from her disco nap and is pairing Rachel sitting East-West. My advice to them is not to be shy; if they have good hands bid on. Sometimes passing is riskier than bidding. Al and Kevin hope to continue their success North-South. They had two small bidding understandings in the first set but otherwise did well.

Kibitzing with Alisdair

It seems I was wrong to fear the team would underbid.. This looks like a quiet hand, but apparently not.

East-West found themselves in 3S-5, which surprisingly was a winning score, as their team-mates saved them. 4H from North looks doomed (losing a Spade, two Hearts, one Diamond), but Kevin found some magic and made it to give us an early lead.

Update - we are well ahead. Here's a 6NT Kevin made. I'll wait to hear about it from him later.

The double dummy solver says 11 tricks is the limit, but what do they know. He got the Ace of herts lead, which helps.

Peggy Bayer Match One - Scotland vs England

The hotel met their first test as about a hundred of us gathered for what they'd claimed was a buffet.  Options were rice of wedges, with vegetarian or chicken curry. "Are there any nuts in here?" I asked. Just this guy, said the jocular server. Later, I made a great joke of my own (see end of this post).

I was dubious that they had a single serving point for everyone but they got through the line pretty quickly (faster than school dinners my team observed), and there was time for a team meeting.

It was stressed that the players are representing the SBU, and have been generously funded by them. Turn up on time, no drinking until Sunday night if at all, and don't bring your phones into matches. Also, everyone makes a lot of mistakes and we're playing a lot of boards so take it easy on each other.

Here's a Scotland squad photo on my self-timer:

And here's one of the junior girls as requested by Stirling University.

I decided not to stay and watch the match, but instead sit outside and follow remotely, nervously updating this website https://bridgeresults.org/o/2024_peggy_bayer/2024_peggy_bayerr.asp

Each match is scored out of 20 Victory Points (VPs), and the nice bit about playing England is you expect to lose 20-0, so anything else is a bonus. To get to a 20-0 VP win you need to win by 60 or more IMPs, and since the match starts 0-0 the pressure is on England.

This was the first board of the weekend:

Our East opened an accurate 1NT (12-14) and played there. South lead the four of Hearts. Declarer now has two Heart tricks, the Ace of Diamonds, and if the Spade finesse works, four Spades. Since the Spade finesse does work, that ought to be 7 tricks in the bag. Something went wrong though and we finished 1NT-1.

On the other table the English East presumably opened 1D (playing a strong NT), and they got to the better contract of 2S, making with an overtrick. So immediately that's 5 IMPs to England.

There followed a succession of games, luckily all falling to our more experienced pair, and Kevin as declarer even make an overtrick not matched on the other table to give us an IMP back. 

Now, ask yourself the question, what is the only way a good team can lose to a weaker team? By pushing too hard and overdoing it! And that's what happened just now, England bidding to 6C-1 while Scotland settled prudently in 5C. After five boards, that puts us in the lead in the match! It surely won't last, which is why I'm writing this now, at what I expect to the highpoint.

To be fair to England, the slam is excellent, just unlucky.

There is hope of more to come as England have just recorded the unusual result of 4NT-1. Niamh made 4S for us so we're now 24-9 up. Dare I dream?

We did not maintain that lead, and lost the for a 

Still, it's money in the bank and 3 VPs in. Finally, my joke:

To be said in a Scots voice:
"Is that a pavlova, or am I wrang?"

Peggy Bayer 2024 - Introduction

I'm in Belfast with the Scotland U21 team, competing for the Peggy Bayer trophy against the other home nations. Scotland is also represented in the U26 event, called the Junior Camrose.

In my Peggy Bayer team we have captain Kevin and old-hand Alexander, who will be playing most of the matches. We also have three 15 year olds making their debut - it's a learning experience for Niamh, Rachel and Isla.

We'll aim not to lose 20-0 to England, and to be competitive with everyone else.

As the non-playing captain it's been a good day so far for me, as we have all made it successfully to the hotel. The bridge doesn't start until tonight at 7 pm, which is when the players do their bit. There were a few issues affecting the other Scotland team with missing passports and not realising there are two airports in Belfast, but I think they're all here now too.

Two of the youngsters in my charge are just back from a school trip to Iceland, where they said they didn't have too much free time. With their free time this afternoon they declined to play bridge as they didn't want to fog their minds before tonight's matches, and instead settled in on a sofa by reception. I asked if they had the WiFi password (silent nods) then went out to explore the local area.

Turns out the local area is a busy road and muddy tracks where I wasn't welcome. Much like Alan Partridge (also from Norwich) I angered a local farmer, and he came out to talk to me. "Where exactly are you running to? There's liability issues with you being here you see." I apologised and went back to the hotel.

La Mon Country House Hotel seems nice, but I get the impression that all the managers are off this weekend and the junior staff don't quite know what's going on. Hopefully they'll have dinner ready for us at 530. I'll be on high alert for dishes containing nuts as one of our team is allergic (she is well-prepared with three EpiPens).

Practice at the airport

Single room

 

  

Glasgow vs Zimbabwe

When a school from Zimbabwe contacted the SBU looking for a friendly bridge match they were put in touch with me, as the teacher of a school club in Glasgow. I arranged the match on RealBridge, which turned out to be between two schools in Harare, Dominican Convent and St John’s, and The High School of Glasgow representing Scotland.

After the inevitable connection difficulties and general confusion (“you can leave the ID number blank!”) it looked like we had maybe seven or eight tables. Given that it’s always better to have substitutes than empty spaces, I reduced it to six tables and combined some teams. After four rounds of two boards each, these were the top three:

Glasgow #2	Niamh R & Rachel Y, Kevin R & Michael K	61 VPs
Dominican #1	Tinashe Z & Daniel R, Nomalangu N & Vongai T	52 VPs
St John’s #2	Susannah P & Gabriella B, Taona Z & Ngavatendwe N	48 VPs

It’s no coincidence that all of the top teams had at least one pair that bid and made games (and Glasgow had two). Bidding and making games is the key to success in Teams matches.

Overall it was quite a chaotic hour of bridge, but I enjoyed seeing all the youngsters play and hope to do it again soon. Most of them had never used RealBridge before, but that didn’t seem to matter much and they picked it up very quickly. There were a few skipped boards for slow play, one unusual 4♦x-8, but also some good play and plenty of potential for the future.

Below I’ve chosen three hands to write about, where there are some good teaching points to pass on to the mostly beginners who were playing. As it’s the most important part of the game, in each case I’m going to focus on declarer play.

In this deal two East-West pairs got to 3NT. Will it succeed?

I encourage my pupils to count top tricks in NT contracts. A quick count reveals that this is one of those happy deals where we’ve been dealt enough top tricks to make the contract (1 Spade + 0 Hearts + 6 Diamonds +2 Clubs = 9). In practice we might get an extra Heart too, but certainly there are nine tricks there for the taking, and indeed both declarers in 3NT made the game easily.

Here 4♥ from North-South was a popular contract, but it didn’t succeed as often as it should have.

For the 3NT contract above we counted sure winners, for this high-level suit contract we instead count expected losers in each suit.

In Diamonds there are two certain losers (but only two, as we can ruff the third and subsequent rounds).

In all of Spades, Hearts, and Clubs we count ½ a loser – meaning that sometimes we will lose 0 tricks and sometimes 1 trick, depending on if a finesse in that suit succeeds. So depending on our luck with finesses we will lose 2, 3 or 4 tricks

The correct way to play the hand is therefore to draw trumps with a finesse, take the Spade finesse, then decide how to play Clubs.

In practice most declarer’s instead failed because they didn’t draw trumps, and West got a ruff with the Ten of Hearts - the message being to draw trumps straight away unless you have good reason not to.

This last deal shows a useful technique, where we don't draw trumps straight away.

Suppose we are sitting South as declarer in 2♠. We have four trumps in each hand, plus a short suit in both our hand and dummy. The fact that we have these shortages means our plan should be to cross-ruff the hand. That means not drawing trumps at all, but instead going from side-to-side ruffing everything we can.

On this deal cross-ruffing makes a lot of tricks. We can make four Diamond tricks (Ace and three ruffs in dummy), four Heart tricks (Ace-King and two ruffs in your hand), plus the Ace of Spades and Ace of Clubs. That makes ten tricks total.

Well done St John’s declarer Emmanuel M who followed a similar plan to make 1♠+2.