Partner opens 1NT and I of course transfer to hearts, then bid 3D, partner bids 3H and not having a clue what to do, I bid 4D. Partner decides K to 3 in hearts and the QD must be cards I am looking for and bids 6H. Well done Adrianne, however when dummy went down she was not impressed (in fact, anything I produce fails to impress) . A QS lead ruffed, diamond to Queen and ace, heart switch, KD and diamond ruff and that's 12 tricks for 1430. well it impressed me.
On the 4th hand I decide I have a strong 2 in spades and open a Benji 2C:
Partner responds 2S! 4NT gets 0 or 3, which must be 3 as we don't give positives over 2C unless we have a good hand, so I bid 7S which is an easy make. Although partner isn't impressed with my idea of 8 top tricks.
We should find 7S after a 1S opening, partner replies 4H splinter and I use RKC as before.
With 2 part scores we are +4000 after 4 boards which can't be bad in an aggregate tournament.
However on board 5 we were only in 2NT by North:
The hearts are 3-3 and a club is the natural lead, so 9 tricks on top and most people bid it.
On board 11 we could have defeated 4S
I led 8H and declarer wins in hand and leads a spade to the 10. Partner lets this hold. A spade back leaves AS outstanding and declarer plays on clubs from dummy for 10 tricks.
If partner takes the first spade (which she would automatically if KS had been inserted), then her obvious switch is the 10C, I win the King, return a club to the Ace and can now get a club ruff. Some put it off and I presume it must have gone like that unless someone finds an inspired KC lead.
Board 17 gave us a bonus. I opened a weak 2H, passed round to West who doubled. Poor East has nowhere to go and decides to pass (I would have bid 2S and hope that we can stop in 3S undoubled).
Now it looks as if I can lose 6 tricks, but 2H always makes, East can only lead once and a spade lead will let me set up a spade winner for a club discard, so I lose 3 diamonds and 2 spades. On a club lead, I play low from dummy, now I have a club to discard a spade and only lose 3 diamonds, a club and a spade.
We didn't finish so well, partner went down in a 3NT which can make and I went down on board 22 in 4S.
East opened 3H, partner doubled and I bid 4S. AH was led and I thought I got off lightly when East switched to a diamond instead of giving their partner a ruff (!). I won in dummy, played a small spade to the 10, J and Q, very surprised to see the 10 although still wondering if I had lost to a singleton or doubleton QS. A diamond is returned which I won in hand. I cashed a top spade to get the surprise and now think East is void in clubs. I cash QH (mistake) and lead a diamond to ruff in dummy and East discards a club!. However I realise I have not thought this through and after ruffing the diamond I can cash KH but have no way back to hand as I cannot overtake 9S. I went one off.
This was just woolly thinking throughout, but I placed East with 7 hearts and some sort of spade shortage at the start, however, after seeing that 10S I really should have rethought the whole hand. When the spade finesse loses and a dimaond comes back, I just need to count my tricks and play for the diamond ruff immediately and then draw trumps for 10 tricks.
We ended up +6270 for 2nd place (just 30 above 3rd place). The winners were +8340, we were never getting close to that. I'm just glad I didn't have the E/W cards all night.
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