Peggy Bayer Match 5 & 6

Scotland and SBU Peggy Bayer teams

In the first match after lunch the SBU team played against Ireland, and Scotland against Wales. These were the final matches in the first round robin.

I know what happened to both my pairs on this hand.

At their table Artem opened the North hand 1D, and Shiva bid a direct 5D. This makes, so I can't complain too much. But I'll complain a bit - South should respond 1H and they should end up in an easy 3NT instead.

In their match Niamh and Artem took a circuitous route to 3NT, which gained IMPs when on the other table Ireland bid to 6D. Isla doubled this and led her Ace, Eunice encouraged, and took her King of Spades for one off.

Both teams bid a safe game here

Eunice & Isla made 4S, and so did Andrew & Maoyan. Top marks to Kajetan and Prajjwal from Scotland U26 who got to the making 7H.

At the end of the match our SBU players came out jubilantly, claiming they had beaten Ireland, by a handsome margin of 30 IMPs. I didn't believe it, and waited for the official score. That seemed to confirm what they had said, a famous win!

In the other match Scotland narrowly beat Wales. Well done both teams!

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It literally was too good to be true, and the scores against Ireland had been accidentally reversed. We actually lost by 30 IMPs.

Biscoff Ice Cream in Troon

In the sixth match Scotland could not repeat their heroics and lost to England, whereas the SBU team lost to Northern Ireland, but not by as much as the scorecard currently shows. 

On both tables West opened 4S, North doubled, South passed, and it went three down. This is presumably as declarer wins seven Spade tricks and nothing else, though looking at it now at two minutes to midnight I wonder if North could get a trump promotion in Diamonds.

Anyway, on one table it was recorded as 4Sx down three by West, and on the other as 4Sx down three by North, which is clearly a mistake, which will get fixed in due course to slightly improve our score.

At the end of six out of ten rounds teams sit somewhere between third and sixth overall, it's quite hard to tell. Certainly behind England and Ireland but not sure about Northern Ireland or Wales. 

Late result - in the Speedball I think Ailsa and English partner Aleks finished 3rd (58%), and Niamh with Welsh partners James and Woody finished 4th (55%)! 

But it's all a bit random in the speedball, as myself and my partner (41%) will tell you.

I conceded 4Hxx against this pair, with an overtrick!