| Board 9 N/EW |
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9 7 3 
K T 8 
Q J T 7 2 
A 6 3 Board 9
We had a bit of a wobble here. Bryony opened 1D and West overcalled 1N. I doubled and East bid 2H (Hearts and spades with hearts longer). Bryony passed and I had a bit of a think. In principle we play pass as forcing here if 2H is natural, but the fact that 2H showed two suits suggested to me that it shouldn’t be here. So I let it go and was very relieved as it is cold by East. The contact can go off if played by West as North can lead a spade. Phew! Unfortunately, Luke and Michael didn’t get any opposition bidding at all and after West opened 1N, East transferred to hearts……. .one off on the spade lead. Very harsh!
Smith and Wilson were playing similar escapes from 1NX to our opponents and also rescued to 2H (showing hearts and spades with longer spades). I don’t have details of their mechanism in full (Houdini, I’m told) but I’m sure Nick can enlighten you if you’re interested.
Once again there was a chance at Procter and Robinson’s table. The defence started out in a similar frame to ours with the CK lead and a club to the ace. Rob then switched to a spade which declarer returned to Mike’s king. A third spade allowed a diamond discard from dummy and the contract was then cold. Declarer then misplayed by running the heart queen and a club return set up another trump trick for the defence. In fact there was a trump –promotion on the cards but Mike couldn’t actually believe that declarer could get it so wrong!
I hear that Cope and Piper had a similar problem to us in that it was slightly unclear as to whether a pass of 2H following the double of the 1N overcall. I think that their opponents just showed a one-suited escape so all roads led to 670 out for them. Ouch! A shame really as Jones and Murphy’s improbable 170 on the other table probably deserved to gain some imps. How on earth do you make that many tricks?
| Board 10 E/All |
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Board 10
Routine game here. Nothing to say…
| Board 11 S/ none |
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Board 11
I felt very cheesed off here. When South opens 1S, how can N/S not bid game? I chose 4S which has no play. But then again, no game makes. I was very irritated to lose imps when at the other table, North rather feebly settled in 4D despite having a nice 13 count opposite an opening bid and having forced to game. Oh well – well done this time. I must admit, at this point things did seem to be running Staffs way in our mini-match.
Mike Robinson found an off-centre multi opening here which managed to push the opponents into a poor 4H contract. That was doubled and slid two off. I’m not sure I like the multi opening, but it certainly worked there, so well done.
Another annoying swing out in the C team when Moss and Clacey got to the normal game but their Staffs counterpart declined to bid it.
| Board 12 W/ NS |
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Board 12
We were defending a heart part-score here. Rather curiously, West overtook the ten of hearts with the queen, giving himself an extra heart loser. That was quite fortunate as it allowed us to defeat it. Flat board in any rate.
| Board 13 N/ none |
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Board 13
I’d have been a little irritated if I were our opponents. Our auction to slam wasn’t very convincing at all!
1N 2C
2D 3D
3H 3S
3N 4D
4H 5C
5D 6D
I won’t expect you to know what it all meant! I wasn’t sure. Still, on a spade lead I took the finesse. When it worked, I then took a trump safety play (and was berated by the opponents for it too, oddly). That was a nice swing in when our counterparts couldn’t get past game when Luke’s 1S overcall seemed to cause absolute chaos.
Smith and Wilson hit the jackpot here when their opponents managed to stay out of slam but instead land in 3N. Alan led the three of hearts and declarer held up the ace till the 3rd round. He then cashed all his clubs and hooked the jack of diamonds on the second round…. Oops! With hearts 5-4, Nick observes that the best line is to win the first heart, cross to the ace of diamonds and play a second diamond covering whatever West plays. That gives you 9 easy tricks. Second best line is to play off ace and king of diamonds and if the queen doesn’t come down, fall back on the spade finesse. Should really come in on careful play, I think.
There was a typical swing in the C team match when Moss and Clacey drove to slam (does Joe ever miss a slam?) and Gidman and Whitehouse’s opponents had a muddled auction to 3N which is of course a fortunate make.
In fact, Oxfordshire bid this hand far better than Staffs as only one pair missed the good slam. We always seem to gain a lot when these tightish slams roll in and lose a bucket when they don’t. Are we just more aggressive than other counties? I’d like to think we are just playing better bridge…..
| Board 14 E/ none |
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Board 14
Tricky hand this. When Bryony and I bid aggressively to 4H, West made a take-out double meaning that East got to play in the dicey spot of 5C. How on earth should you play this? This basically comes down to deciding which King to play South for. If you guess that South has the king of clubs, you can play ace and another spade to get to hand to take the club finesse meaning you can make amazing 11 tricks. Our opponents misguessed and played clubs from the top and eventually slid 3 off. Michael Clark judged extremely well to sell out to 4H at his table and so we had a satisfying gain on the board.
A surreal board once again at Smith and Wilson’s table.
P P 1C P
1D P 2S 3H
P P X P
?
Apparently Alan thought for a long time about passing this one out after the lunatic 3H call. When the dummy hit down with massive trump support they both feared the worst. However, fortunately the 3H bid was so bad, that it didn’t really matter! Nick’s view:
“Alan led S3 to my ace and I made a decent decision to return the S8 rather than a big one. Declarer tried HA and a 2nd one to the 9 and jack in order to lead a D off table. I rose with DA to lead SJ. Declarer decided to pitch a D, as did Alan, so I played another. This time declarer ruffed high, so Alan threw his last D. Belatedly, declarer tried to cash DK, but Alan ruffed and pushed a C through to my AQ. When I led DQ, declarer bizarrely threw a C. If I’d now had a D or a S left, we could no have had a trump promo. Alas, I’d had to make two early discards and only had Cs left, so he got away with three off. Daft game!
Quite!!
Procter and Robinson were also enjoying some strange bridge. Defending 3S, they simply kept leading hearts and declarer managed to throw all his potentially winning diamonds away to give the defence safe exit cards. This led to the contract sliding an improbably 4 off!
| Board 15 S/NS |
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Board 15
Bryony opened 3S here as South. East made a takeout double and West protected with 3N. This was cold. I thought this would probably be a flat board, but at the other table South only opened 2S. Luke and Michael are fairly disciplined in the direct seat and so protect quite light. When Michael took a fairly conservative view to bid an encouraging but non-forcing 3D over Luke’s protective double, he decided to pass. Trumps splitting 6-1 was quite a blow! Happens sometimes when both take players take a conservative view but was only a non-vulnerable game, at least.
A lesson on this one at the Lintott’s table. The opponents opened a weak two and in an attempt to be too cute, they got to 4H instead of 3N. The problem being that the latter contract has the benefit of being cold. Sometimes, the simplest solution of just bidding game gets you to the right spot.
A game swing in the A team when Jones and Murphy got to 3N and their counter-parts could only reach part-score.
| Board 16 W/EW |
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Board 16
Another normal game here for a flat board. Need to lead a club to stop it disappearing on the second spade.
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