Four of the Scotland U21 team are now competing in the pairs in Italy. I happened to see Niamh and Rachel on the Vugraph for the last board of the morning session:
After West passed, Niamh sitting North had the balanced 14 count. For us that's an easy 1NT opener. East made a penalty double and the spotlight was on South.
Last week we did a practice session on what to do when your 1NT is doubled, and I was pleased to see that everyone got it right. Rachel sitting South bid 2S, weak and to play, and Niamh passed.
Against the contract of 2S West lead the Queen of Clubs.
There are not many tricks available for declarer. If you get Spades right you have 5 tricks there, plus one Diamond, and maybe a Club. The first decision is what to do on the opening Club lead. As West's lead of the Queen almost certainly denies the Ace, it's best to play low, which would have worked well here.
Declarer instinctively played the King of Clubs, losing to the Ace. East returned a Diamond to the Ace. When tackling trumps declarer made the sensible decision to play East for the Queen of Spades, as he'd made the penalty double of 1NT. Unfortunately it didn't work here. In the end declarer got just four Spade tricks and one Diamond for 2S-3.
As ever in Matchpoints, it's hard to work out if this is a good score. It wasn't, just 17%. Getting 2S-2 would be 43%. Although East-West can make 4H, or probably 3NT, they generally didn't.
At the end of the first session Rachel and Niamh were on 42%, and the other Scottish pair of Iris and Ailsa on 46%.
In the second and third sessions a similar story, and both Scottish pairs are near the bottom with about 40%. They will both be going in to the B-Final.
I think they mostly lost out from bringing in seemingly good scores like 1NT= or 4H=, but getting a bad matchpoint score as there were overtricks available. There were also a few auctions where they could have competed more. But, in general, I was impressed with the play I saw and I think they can be proud of their efforts so far.
It is a high-quality field. On one board Rachel and Niamh made 6H+1, but it only got them 42%.
Here's a deal from the second session today which impressed me:
Rachel sitting West found herself in 3H. This was not a kind deal for East-West, and getting out for one down would be a good result.
Near the end declarer was left with KQ8 in Diamonds and North had J97. Rather than just playing off the KQ and hoping for the best, Rachel wisely cashed all her trumps and the Ace of Spades, forcing North to decide what to keep. North went wrong and threw a Diamond, and Rachel scored 65%.
This Scottish pair are only 17 years old and playing in an U21 event - getting a bit craftier will help them a lot!
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