Wednesday 27 June

Playing N/S with Gerry came 3rd with 56%.  Shot ourselves in the foot a few times, played in a 3-1 fit on one board and the trumps didn't even split!

 Two interesting boards against David & Catherine.  Gerry opens 1S as South (the hand satisfies the rule of 20, but just 'looks' like an opening hand to me). I bid 2C and Catherine 2D.  Gerry bids 3C and David competes with 3D.  I bid 3S and Gerry with a nice double fit now bids game.
Diamond lead taken with dummy's Ace, spade to the Ace and a spade ducked to Catherine's King.  Heart switch taken by Ace, draw last trump, diamond ruff back and finesse the club. Gerry got everything spot on for 11 tricks and a joint top.

On the next board David opened West 1C and the bidding went:
1C - P - 1N - 2S
3D - 4S - 5C - x

I gave this some thought, it might be 650 vs 500 but with 2 defensive tricks I have to leave it in.
Anyway double dummy you can get 1100, we got 800.  6S makes our way, but nobody is going to bid that however a number of N/S were doubled in 5S and even 4S and with the overtricks got big scores. So our 800 was just above aveerage.

Got a complete 0 against Helen & Colin.  Colin did well to bid slam after 1H by Helen, 2S by me, 3D by Colin, 4H Helen, 6H.
Now my QH might win a finesse and though that is doubtful I am hopeful that partner's holding will turn into a trump trick.  Anyway with KD right for declarer, my spade winner could disappear. So leading AS seemed to be the right thing to do.  Wrong! 13 tricks in the back as Helen ruffs, drops my QH and gets rid of the other 2 spades on the clubs.
Five pairs in 6H, 2 Norths led QH, three of us led AS.  Only Helen made 13.

 Got a good score for once against Raymond and Alec who bid to 6H.  On the face of it, not the worst slam.  3-2 splits in hearts and clubs and a spade finesse, 3-3 spades would forego the need for clubs to split.  Not impossible but on the lie of the cards nobody is going to make this.  Raymond went 3 down giving us 100%, a few others did bid 6 but only went 1 or 2 down..
The really interesting thing is 6H makes.  On a diamond lead, KH then the 9 and play South for his holding and you have 1 heart loser. Play the spades by Ace then Jack, pinning the 10.  This gives 4 spade tricks and a club discard, 12 tricks.

Against Mary and Moira I had a bidding problem.  Mary opened East 1S, Gerry bid 1NT and Moira bid 2C.
I have 8 opposite the strong NT, two 10s and the doubleton QJ are working.  To bring hearts in 2H is to play and 3H is forcing.  I didn't like either of those options.  Doubling 2C could give us 200 but if Moira has 6 clubs and no spades negating many of our points then that could make.  In the end 2NT looked the best bid which is what I did, passsed out. Moira ducked JH when it was played so Gerry got 3 clubs, 3 hearts and two spades for a good score.