Peggy Bayer 2025 - Monday #1

It's Monday morning now and we have all safely made it to the airport. I had to knock on a couple of doors this morning of some of the older players. I was relieved when they opened them straightaway fully dressed with suitcases. The Scotland U26 team were up late last night playing some sort of five-handed bridge. I talked with the Welsh and Irish while the precocious English children played Trivial Pursuit well after midnight. But they didn't know how old Adrian Mole was or what the answer was to life, the Universe and everything (I think it was quite an old copy of the game).

The banquet dinner last night was good, and one of the players who is a bar manager agreed the hotel couldn't have done any more. They cleaned up a lot of discarded cups and pieces of paper over the weekend.

After the dinner and short speeches there was a surprise, as the England captain put on some shades and rapped Eminem's Without Me with bridge lyrics. My team were baffled and entertained - it was brilliant. I had nothing to add to this performance.

There was a spare seat when Iris went home

Absolutely stuffed

Looking wonderful

I expect we will take a break from bridge for a little while, or at least I won't be doing evening training sessions any more. This tournament has caused a great improvement in my players in the lead up; not just from those at the event but others who have been attending too.

When someone forgets about an Unusual 2NT I don't mind; I'm glad it came up as it means they will know it for next time - you have to see things happen to remember them. And in fact next match the Unusual 2NT came up twice, and the player who'd forgotten before got it right both times.

It's been a good weekend. The Scotland team were excellent conduct and are very easy to manage - they can be very proud of their performance over the weekend.

 

Next year we will try and finish above Ireland. 

 

Peggy Bayer 2025 - Sunday #4

The team were disappointed with their performance against EBU but bounced back with some really good play against Ireland. 

The North-South pair of Rachel and Niamh, our two most experienced players, bid a series of good games and made them all. The East-West pair of Iris and Isla (playing together for the first time) underbid a couple but immediately identified them, an encouraging sign that they are spotting their own mistakes. 

All that remains tonight is the gala dinner, where I fear I may be required to make a short speech. If I am, I will say that "Myself and the Scotland teams have enjoyed ourselves very much. The hotel was good, the food was good, the bridge was sometimes good too. Next year we look forward to welcoming you to Scotland." 

One of our party (Iris) has already left to get the train back to London, so I think there may be an extra serving at dinner for Timon the meerkat.

Final standings for the Peggy Bayer

In the U26 event the team came a bit closer to Ireland, and in the end did well to hold of Wales to secure third.

Peggy Bayer 2025 - Sunday #3

We scraped a narrow win against Northern Ireland and are now getting hammered by the EBU. 

As I can't see the play or bidding I have given limited feedback to my team. One can only speculate about how we might have got to 4H here:

I am only confident that West would open 1S. After that I would like to see 1NT from East, 3S from West, 4S from East, but who can say what really happened.

Time for a big cup of tea.

We have Ireland next (big match) then the real challenge for me is that dinner isn't until 915. 

Peggy Bayer 2025 - Sunday #2

With just two matches to go things are looking tight. We are still in fourth place, but rather than trying to catch up with Ireland we are now looking over our shoulder at Northern Ireland. The last two matches are tough ones - against EBU and against Ireland.

Lunch today was similar to yesterday, various sandwiches and some chips for the fussy eaters. One of my team said all of the sandwiches were weird because they had salad and/or tomatoes in them. Admittedly, there was one today with a strange paste I couldn't identify.

Front of the queue for lunch

I have encouraged the youngsters to be healthy and go out for walks. Yesterday two of them managed to get out of the hotel, but only for the purpose of walking to Greggs (they got lost and never got a yum-yum). The Irish team just go outside to vape and the Welsh have obviously not read the same books as I have about ultra-processed foods. Their captains have brought an enormous amount of snacks, which are constantly pushed on their team. "Monster Munch! Take a bag, we've got all the flavours". "Bubble-gum sweets are quite good in the morning!"

Here is a hand from our 20-0 drubbing from the EBU team. 

It's the only type of hand where we tend to gain on against England, where they bid to an unmakeable slam. 6H from East has two top losers, and not enough tricks even if you get a friendly lead. Our South lead the King of Clubs and gave it no chance.

So we were briefly 11 IMPs up, as our East-West pair stayed safely in game. But then came a barrage of missed games. Most of them we should have been in too, some we should have defended better. But here is one more gain:

Against 3NT, our South lead the Ace of Diamonds. Presumably they took three more Diamond tricks. Then declarer ends up taking a Spade finesse and going down. On the other table we stopped in 2S=, which was worth 5 IMPs but maybe a moral loss as you probably want to be in 3NT.

Peggy Bayer 2025 - Sunday #1

The team won against Wales last night to leave us with three wins (Wales, NI, Wales) and three losses (England, Ireland, EBU). The final column below are the current scores.

After six matches we are therefore in fourth place, about half a match behind Ireland in third. Today is a tough day kicking off with the England team, who we are playing as I write this. I sat in the playing area for the first couple of deals, where I saw a classic example of how expensive underbidding can be.

This is Board 2, from my memory:

NS vul E deal ♠ A K x x ♥ A T 9 x x ♦ x x ♣ A x ♠ Q x x ♥ J x x x ♦ K x ♣ x x x x 15 7 7 11 ♠ J x x ♥ K x ♦ Q J 9 x x ♣ J x x ♠ T x x ♥ Q x ♦ A T 9 x ♣ K Q x x

W N E S - 1♥ 2♦ - - 2♠ - - 3♦ - - -

Our North opened 1♥ followed by a very light 2♦ overcall from the young English gentleman sitting East. South has a 2NT bid, with 10+ points and a good stopper in Diamonds. In fact we looked at an almost identical hand this morning at breakfast, but maybe my team were too sleepy to take in my sage advice. 2♦ went round to North, who is not generally guilty of underbidding, and found a 2♠ bid.

South could now bid 3NT but passed. England bid on to 3♦, which went down five.

Although superficially it might feel like we have 'won' the board as we put them off five, it was non-vulnerable and undoubled so only +250 while everyone else was making 3NT with the North-South cards for +600.   

Here is a happier deal from yesterday:

In the match against Wales our East-West pair of Chris and Ailsa bid to the fine contract of 4S. You just lose one trump and two Hearts and claim the rest. Our North-South pair of Rachel and Niamh bid on to 5D. This should go one off, losing two Clubs and a trump Ace, but perhaps West kept trying to cash Spades, so 5D made, for a double game swing to Scotland.

Even if 5D goes off one it's still a good result. This is an example of a double-fit board, where both sides have big fits in two suits (reds for North-South, blacks for East-West) so make a lot of tricks. 

The live scores for our current match against England are thankfully not displaying, so let me recount the Speedball with a twist from last night. Although most people teamed up with someone from another country, I took this opportunity to play with Prajjwal from the Scotland U26 team, who I have never played a hand with.

We agreed a system of Five Weak Twos, or rather I suggested it and Prajjwal agreed. In the end our bidding was generally straightforward, and we frequently finished well within the 7 minutes allocated for the two boards. With bonuses for fast-play finishes we came 5th overall. 

Timon is a citizen of the World, and blends in wherever he goes

My only regrets were one hand I attempted to bid delicately, which inevitably ended in a bad 3NT duly punished by Laura (Scotland U26 captain) and her young English partner, and missing out on a potential squeeze through not paying enough attention. That was for the third overtrick in 3NT which isn't really the thing to worry about in Speedball, but it would have nice to impress my English opponent.

The bridge didn't finish until 1130 pm, another late night for me. 

Peggy Bayer 2025 - Saturday #4

I didn't make it to the Village Bakery, as someone asked if I would help be the Vugraph operator for an U26 match. It was Scotland-Ireland. My job was to watch from a big chair and input the bids and cards as they were played. Sometimes it was hard to keep up, and I had to correct my auctions a few times. Once I was sure declarer was going off but then he showed his remaining cards, everyone nodded and murmured assent, apparently it was 2H=, so that's what I recorded.

During that match I could also see our team playing Ireland, the most closely matched opponent. Having lead the whole time it seems we lost 11-9, putting us in 4th place at the half way mark. The two England teams are firmly in front, with the older teenagers of England ahead of the younger teenagers and not-even-teenagers of EBU. Then comes us and Ireland, not far apart. Every team now plays every team again to determine the winners.

Scotland U21
Rachel, Isla, Niamh, Iris, Ailsa, (me), Chris

Scotland U26
Prajjwal, Antone, Kevin, (Laura), Rufus, Tamsin, Jamie

EBU 

Tonight it's the Speedball after dinner. Although it'll be after 930 by then and I'd like to be getting to bed, I have decided to play. This is for the purpose of experiencing the difficulty of playing bridge after all this watching, which is making it look easy. I am slightly concerned though that it is Speedball with a Twist.

Peggy Bayer 2025 - Saturday #3

The team pulled a win against Northern Ireland to put them in third place out of six. Our East Chris claimed he was cooking on Boards 1 and 6. I've just checked the hand records:

East made 2D+3, a fine result with at least five losers!

East bid and made 4S. "Six-five, come alive."

I'm not in a position to confirm if he was indeed cooking, but it was certainly two good boards, and we are firmly ahead of Northern Ireland and Wales. 

However, Isla and Rachel have just returned from a bruising encounter against the EBU, the second England team. It looks like a 20-0 loss. Apparently their opponents were friendly, but intimidating because they were good.

On this hand West got to 7S, which our North doubled.

West redoubled and made 13 tricks.

At the other table ur West hand began well with a 2C opening, then after partner showed Spade support stopped in 5S. Although it's probably possible to devise hands where you can't make 6S, the odds massively favour it so it's worth a bid.

Pre-match Granola

Next we have Ireland - after which we will have played all the teams.

While that match is going on I am going to walk to The Village Bakery which looks quite far away over a hill, but hotels get so stuffy will be good to get out for a bit.

Peggy Bayer 2025 - Saturday #2

Decent breakfast. The hot food had the unusual addition of a big tub of tomatoes. I liked the 'continental' and was close to risking putting a croissant in the toaster despite the signage when I decided it was a bit too busy to risk an incident. Yes, I was there for breakfast at least an hour before my team and two hours before the Scotland U26 team.

Monster loves berries

I went through a few hands at breakfast - it's really the play that matters but it is easier to talk about the bidding. The hand where one of our players miscounted her points and we passed out the hand with 15 points opposite 10 turned out to be a gain when 3NT went one off at the other table, but she's promised to count more carefully and not do it again.

I sat in and watched Chris and Ailsa for the first couple of boards. This was the first up:

	♠ x x x x ♥ x x x x ♦ A x ♣ 9 x x
	♠ A K J T x ♥ A x ♦ Q x ♣ K J T 8

With no hand records I have to rely on my own memory. Chris, sitting South, made a nice 2S overcall and played there. He got a Heart lead. He drew two rounds of trumps, and when the Queen didn't fall stopped playing trumps. This is good play - there is no point playing a third round of trumps and using up two of your trumps to lose a trick. Perhaps Chris had read my article The Rule of One. 

Even better, declarer then started playing on Clubs. Of course you'd like to play Clubs from dummy, but once you realise you have all of the high cards except the Ace and Queen you can just bludgeon away at Club and eventually come to two tricks. That's enough to make it - four Spades, one Heart, one Diamond, two Clubs. I was counting while watching, I hope declarer was too.

After setting up the Clubs declarer had a chance of a further trick by throwing a Diamond from dummy then ruffing a Diamond. Ruffing a Diamond in dummy when you start off with two in each hand is a bit subtle, and there was no overtrick. I'll take 2♠=, well done declarer!

On the second board we found a good lead from ♦ J T 9 x x x against 3NT, but then the defenders lost their nerve and stopped playing Diamonds. This is a shame, as I think they had set up enough Diamond winners to beat the contract (but didn't know it - defence is hard like that).

The screen isn't low enough to stop Timon peeking

Peggy Bayer 2025 - Saturday #1

There is now this improved results page for the Peggy Bayer WBU Results although it hasn't improved our score against England, which remains a 16-4 loss. This is actually a pretty good result, as the IMP scale is harsh and in fact they only lost by 29-54 IMPs. 

On speaking to the team afterwards it seems both pairs defended on both tables for most of the hands, which is probably a little to do with less confidence than the cocky English, and also less practice in a competitive auction. 

I will have a look at a a hand or two with them over breakfast. Here is one I'll ask about

Everyone in 4S? You'd think North overcalls Spades at some point and South bids game. But our North-South pair defended 3D. On the plus side they did beat it (by three tricks).

This morning we have Northern Ireland, then the EBU (second England team).

Ask the expert

Peggy Bayer 2025 - Friday #2

 

Teams Scotland

Dinner was OK, and I'll reserve judgment until breakfast tomorrow. Good pasta, disappointing fish pie (I had two main courses, but no pudding). I kept the team talk low key to diffuse pressure. I realised our team are far from the youngest youngsters here as they lined up against an inexperienced Wales quartet. Next door the two U21 England teams were even younger; apparently they have a 10 and 13 year old playing.

As the action began I decided to start off by watching live in the match room. I managed to remain impassive as two strange things happened on the first board. Then I discreetly left to get my laptop and commentate on the U26 match.

The U26 event is live and watchable on Realbridge, for the U21 event there is much less to find online. 

Our players have just come of their first match. Bridge is a strange game in that you have no idea of the score until afterwards. 

Here are a couple of boards the players told me about:

This misfit board proved challenging. Scotland did well to defend on both tables. On one table our North-South pair (Niamh and Iris) defended 4C by West, going one off. On the other table the Welsh North went for 5C. Our East (Rachel) doubled this, but our West (Isla) assured me she would have doubled too. 5Cx went off five for a good one for Scotland.

This one I actually have the auction for. West opened 2H, and our North-South overcalled 2S and raised to 4S. This made comfortably. On the other table, our West played 2Hx off two.

I think we won the first match by 52 IMPs, for a 19-1 win.

The team are now doing battle with England. I left our debutant pair of Chris and Ailsa looking slightly concerned about the England team's discussion of bids that we have no knowledge of. I'm sure they'll be fine.

This second match finishes about 1130 pm so you can read about that tomorrow!

Live results from Peggy Bayer

Peggy Bayer 2025 - Friday #1

I am once again the non-playing captain of the Scottish U21 bridge team. This year we are in Wales, in fact right now we are in the lobby of the hotel waiting for a triple room to be prepared.

We have lost our most experienced player to the U26 team, so the three High School of Glasgow youngsters are now the mainstays of the team. They are joined by two from Hutcheson's Grammar, also in Glasgow, and a mystery sixth from London. 

It was a good journey down on Easyjet, and I'm glad I didn't offer to drive the team from Scotland. My pre-booked Welsh taxi driver was where he was supposed to be, which is really the most important thing as the non-playing captain. Alun (I didn't catch his name) has been living in Newport for 65 years but said there was nothing worth seeing here. "Cardiff has a few nice spots mind."

The team have been practicing hard over the last few months, mostly online as they have been off school on exam study leave. In theory the whole team play the same system, but there are varying degrees of expertise in the squad. We are very much a mid-table team, and I expect us to beat Northern Ireland and Wales but struggle against Ireland and England. 

Five minutes after I handed out paper copies of the convention cards for the team to study.

Tonight after dinner we have a match against Wales, followed by a late night encounter with England. Before that I intend to prove Alun wrong and find some nice spots around Newport to visit.

Event Brochure (Scotland team profiles on Page 28)
RealBridge link for Kibitzing (U26 matches only)
Event Page (but not much info - I can't find where the results are going to be)

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.