Monday 26 November

Playing N/S with Adrianne we came 1st with a Butler score of 55.

What a great hand to pick up against Katie and Winnie.  I opened our strongest bid, 2D, Adrianne bid a negative 2H and Katie 3D. This is good news, surely a long suit with some top honours, so anything Adrianne has will be working. I bid 4D, Adrianne 5C and I bid 6C.  This is an easy bid, what is the worst Adrianne can have, 3334 and pointless? Well a heart can go on a spade and you still make if clubs 2-2. Distributions like 3424 is impossible, Adrianne would have bid 4H.
Nothing to the play on AD lead and 13 tricks rolled in.  Can you bid the Grand? The best I can do over 5C is 5D, Adrianne might take that as being consistent with me being 5-5 in the majors and bid 5S, but I now bid 6C so she can see it as a grand slam try. Still, bidding 7C is a leap of faith.

 Missed a good score here against Charles and Barry. Charles opened 1H and our bidding went:
1H - 2C - 2S - 3C
3S - 4C - 4H - passed out.

Adrianne led a small club, that let Charles dispose of a diamond and he lost the obvious heart, spade and diamond making 10 for 620. A spade lead could have beaten it but it will never be found on the bidding.
What's worse is we make 5C, you are only going to lose a spade and a club, so a 1220 point swing, ouch!
Who said the 5 level was for the opponents?

We did get our score back on the set, Adrianne being the only one in game.
Aces are undervalued in the points count yet you often hear players say 'I only had 3 Aces'. Anyway Adrianne upgraded her hand and opened 1S, I bid 2C and she rebid 2NT showing 15 points. Eminently a more sensible rebid than 2S. I now bid 3S and Adrianne bid game.
KD was led, taken by Ace making this hand even more straightforward as the KS and QC are both onside though Adrianne played safely for her contract getting the heart ruff and used the diamond to remove the need for the club finesses and lost KS, a heart and QD for 10 tricks. With the lack of intermediates I would probably have opened the South hand 1N and played there, must remember my own mantra, Aces are undervalued.

 Another good score by Adrianne against Bob and Cathy.
Bob opened 1C, Cathy bid 1S and Adrianne came in 2H.  Bob passed and I could have bid 2S or 3C to show a good heart raise but felt Adrianne must have six hearts and some decent cards outside, (i.e. a diamond honour), so I bid 4H.
Bob led KC and Adrianne won Ace and ruffed a club low. She now played a spade from Dummy, Cathy took the Ace and followed with QS which Adrianne won with the King.  She now led a diamond and Bob took the Ace. A trump came back won perforce in Dummy, Adrianne cashed KD and ruffed a diamond with the 9H, ruffed a club, ruffed a spade with JH cashed QH and made 10 tricks. Double dummy it is easy to set up diamonds but that needs 3-3 break, getting the two club ruffs and leading towards your Kings requires hearts 2-2.

I've been trying to follow the maxim that the 5 level level belongs to the opponents as I've always tended to bid too much.  We've already got one wrong in this set though (board 10 above).  Here's another.
Cliff opened East 1S, Len made the natural 3S raise and I bid 4H.  Clifford went to 4S and back to me. I'd love to bid 5H, maybe even try 5C, but according to the bidding Adrianne is pointless, maybe I have four cashing tricks.  I pass.
Well I did have four tricks, 100 to us but Adrianne had a singleton spade and QC to four. I can't fail in 5H.  Wrong again.