Monday 28 January

Playing N/S with Adrianne came in the middle with a Butler score of 0. Our opponents got most of the hands and mostly did the right things with them. We played OK throughout, got one piece of luck when a pair failed to bid an easy game but lost it when Adrianne got completely distracted at the end and embarrassingly went down in a stiff game.

Got a bad score against Mike and Steve.  Most East's will open 1D, rebid 1N and end up in 3N.  South will lead a club   and the defence will take 3 clubs, one or two diamonds and AS.
Steve opened 1N and Mike raised to 3N. At least Adrianne avoided the diamond lead but led 9S which ran to Steve's Q. Now South is the danger hand so Steve cleverly ran 7D which held and so he now has 4 diamond tricks to be the only one to make game.
Even after the spade lead, most declarers would just have played KD and finessed JD, South plays another spade taken by North who then plays QC to defeat the contract.

This was an awkward hand for everyone. Our bidding went:

1D - 2C - 2D - 3C
4C -  x  -  4D - P
5D  - x  - passed out.

Christine cashed AC then switched to a heart to Q and K. I couldn't really figure why Christine had doubled, has she 5 diamonds? I laid down AD and Ileen followed with the 10. So four small diamonds, must have singleton AS.  I tried a small spade, oh oh, Ileen won the Ace, gave Christine a ruff, one down.
At least we avoided 4S.