Monday 7 January

Playing N/S with Adrianne managed to come last with a Butler score of -48 on 24 boards. We did not play at all badly, only one misjudged bid by me that got us into the wrong slam. In fact that was the only real error of the night.

 This board was typical of our luck.
I showed a balanced 24/25 NT and Adrianne bid 6N.
Davina led a heart which I won with the 10 in hand. I tried the diamonds, but 4-1, I played KS to Barbara's Ace and she returned a heart.  I won in dummy and finessed the club for one off.
Only two of us in 6N, everyone else in game.  It is 68% that 5 cards break 3-2 and the 32% they don't I had a 50% chance of the finesse.  An 84% slam but I very bad score.

I don't really understand our bad score here. Cathy opened a strong NT, Bob used a 4H transfer and Cathy is in 4S.
Adrianne leads a trump and Cathy wins AS and crosses to KS to lead a club to Q and K.
So Cathy has 5 points in spades and presumably AQ of clubs.  With a max she could have both red Kings, but I gave count on the clubs so Adrianne is fairly certain Cathy has 5 and she might have JC. Knowing either Cathy is not max and so I have a red King or Cathy started with AQJxx clubs in which case a club return is fatal, Adrianne did the most sensible thing and cashed both red Aces to see if I would encourage in either. Nope, a club return would have beaten it! Many went off.

Against Jim and Nigel Adrianne opened South 1C, I bid 1D and Adrianne bid 1H.  I thought about bidding 2S but my hand says 3N and that is what I bid.  Adrianne went to 6N.
6S would have been easy with two heart discards on the AQ diamonds However this is still a 75% slam needing one of two finesses but both were wrong and I was down one.
Before leading Jim asked about Adrianne's length in clubs and hearts and I said she could be 4441 and have equal length or she will be at least 5 clubs, 4 hearts.  If I thought she could be 4441 why didn't I bid that 2S!!!