Friday 26 March 2021

Glasgow League: Team Ruffians vs Team Rowan

Last night Anna and I got the kids to be early and settled down for a 24 board match. Things started calmly with a series of one level contracts. I think we defended these well, but this was total points so they didn't matter too much.

Later on things picked up and we bid aggressively. This caused the opponents to miss a couple of games, but also pushed them in to games that they might not have got to otherwise.

This was a frustrating one:

At favourable vulnerability I thought I was worth a 2♣ overcall, showing at least 5-4 in the majors. West bid his Clubs naturally and East did the right thing bidding 3NT.

The contract makes or goes down depending on my lead. A heart gives declarer a free Heart trick, which turns out to be his ninth, alongside six Clubs and two Diamonds. Anything else, and declarer is stuck on eight tricks. As soon as he touches Spades Anna can win and fire through the Jack of Hearts. Best of all is if I lead Spades, in which case we get the first six tricks.

I lead a Heart, conceding 3NT=. My heart lead failed here, but could be the right thing to do if declarer has something like ♥KJx and we need to play the suit twice to set it up.

What about the other tables? 3NT was played twice more and also made, once with a similar Heart lead from South, once when North lead Diamonds then kept leading them. Sheena and Colin were on defence against 5♣, which needs excellent defence and got it, the defence getting their Spade ruff for one off. So overall the board was a win for Team Rowan.

Board 21 I'm not sure if we made life difficult for the opponents or helped them:

After Anna opened 1♠ and the next hand overcalled I went straight to 4♠. I think this is the right bid, though Anna says she would only have bid 3&spadees;. Here, where West has lots of Clubs, he has an easy 5♣ bid, but if he had for example a big Diamond suit with only two or three Clubs they're probably going to miss their game.

Anna was restrained in not bidding 5♠, which could go three off doubled for -800.

My trump lead was ineffective and declarer wrapped up 12 tricks.

In the other half of our match our team-mates missed out (playing 4♣+1), after East bid an unusual 2NT and South passed. In the other match Jill and Barbara had no trouble making 5♣+1 (again after an unusual 2NT and South passing). On the last table South found a 3♠ raise then North bid 4♠ then 5♠. That sounds suicidal to me but it was undoubled and in fact lost only two tricks for -200.

There may also have been a hand where I leapt to 6♣ missing two Aces, and both Anna and I apologised to each other afterwards.

But the good news is, overall we won the match by 2150 points, for a flying start to the season!

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