Wednesday 5th January

One of those nights you want to forget, somehow we ended up with 47.5%, felt like 35%. When 5 boards running you enter the result and it comes up 0% you wonder if there is a machine fault or is there something wrong with my bidding/play? Unfortunately those Bridgemates are completely reliable.

For some reason my partner would prefer to remain anonymous, so I won't mention the name of the West District Chairman (WDC).



On board 1 I had a bidding problem. I discounted 3C, for 5C I prefer 8 cards and no defence at all. I decided to open 1C, Ian Patrick overcalled 1H and WDC bid an inverted 3C. Bob McKinnon bid 4H and I bid 5C hoping for just 2 off and Ian doubled. Bob didn't fancy that would be their best score and bid 5H. This goes round to partner who, facing an opening bid, not unreasonably doubles.

This I reckon will be a bottom so I bid 6C, maybe that can be just 2 off (some hope). Ian doubles again and I go 3 off for a bottom.


A 5C opener is more interesting, presumably Ian doubles and Bob bids 5S (might be tempted to bid 6). Partner would likely bid 6C and if E/W go to 6S that can't make, only 6H makes.

One pair did bid the heart slam after a 5C opener (Adrianne & Christine), unluckily they bid 7!


With no interference our bidding on this hand went: 1C - 1S - 2H - 3C - 3D - 3S - 5C



Difficult for me to know South has 6 spades, though I could still have elected for the 5 - 2 fit. Quite a few found the spade contract so 5C didn't score too well.

I probably didn't play it well either. I got a diamond lead to the 9 and Ace. I should play on spades, but I fancied that if I played a heart now I would get a diamond continuation. So I played 3H from hand, won by the 7 in East's hand. However much as West wanted another diamond, Moira Moreland correctly played a club.

Now I have to play spades but they lie perfectly for me even though Mary correctly tests me with a third spade when in with the King.


Playing Benji, we can use 2C to show a 19-20 NT hand. I wish I had used that here. Unfortunately I decided to bid it as a strong 2 suiter and opened 1D.





So the bidding went:



P - 1D - P - 1S - 2NT by Nigel Guthrie.



Now I did think of 4NT here, but Jim Forsyth will very likely bid one of Nigel's suits and partner and I have no agreement over interference.

A similar sort of sequence had occurred before when I bid 5S as a slam try, so 5S it was.

Jim bid 6C, Joan 6S, Nigel 7C and I doubled for a below average 800, 6S being a typical score, three pairs found 7S or 7NT.

This last example was a bit of a disaster against Charles and Vi.




I'd got us a bad score on the previous hand with a misguided defence (misguided : euphemism for stupid). This was just unlucky really.


Charles opens 1C which could be weak or strong, Vi bids 3C showing a good 3D pre-empt. I tried 3D and Charles bids 3NT.


Partner tries a small spade, 10 tricks made. Of course a heart (or clubs first) puts it 5 down.

Story of our night.