Flustered at the Winter Pairs

The first Wednesday of each month at the Buchanan is the Winter Pairs. The winning pair is the one with the four best scores from all the months. Me and Anna had a good September (see here), but missed October. So it was important we came roaring back in November.

I was sitting North, and had a very busy evening. I bothered the Director several times, from mis-scoring boards. Then one Board came over from the other room, and when I looked at the wallet straight away something didn't look right with the North cards. They were absolutely stuffed in there. I had nineteen cards! My partner had seven. How on earth did that happen? The Director was called again to sort it out, but was half way through a hand himself. Later in the night we had only one opponent for ten minutes, as it turned out her partner thought it was the break. I was getting quite warm, though everyone else was cold, and at one point Anna started wearing my jumper on top of hers.

Here's a good one for us. Both sides are vulnerable.

♠ Q ♥ K 9 7 4 ♦ J 8 6 4 ♣ 8 6 5 3 ♠ J 6 4 2 ♥ - ♦ K Q T 3 ♣ A K T 9 2

Anna Danny W N E S 1♠ 2♣ 2♠ 3♣ 3♠ 4♣ - - x - - -

East opened 1♠, and I've got the nice South hand. I overcalled 2♣, and West bid 2♠. This was Matchpoint scoring, and often 2♠ finishes the auction. But not today. Anna found a 3♣ raise with her North hand, which is an excellent bid with four trumps and a singleton Spade. From her perspective, 3♣ is probably going one off but 2♠ is making. But it didn't end there - East bid again with 3♠, and, now I realised that my partner must have a singleton or void Spade, I came back in with 4♣. East doubled this and that ended the auction.

I did think about redoubling, because I've got a great hand, with some surprises the defence won't expect - excellent trumps sitting over the doubler, and a Heart void.

I got a Spade lead and made 10 tricks, just losing one Spade, one Diamond and one Club, surprisingly to West who had ♣QJx. East had made what he described as a Match Point Double, which I think was actually a very good bid. I was most impressed that after the doubled contract made, he shrugged his shoulders and that was it. West suggested maybe she should have bid 4♠, but East just said it was just one of those things, if you always double when you should occasionally you'll double a making contract.

I entered the contract into the Bridgemate as 4♣=, then we called the Director again and fixed it to 4♣x=.

With a bit more luck like that we finished the night on 55%.