Wednesday 30 January

Playing E/W with Gerry came in the middle with 50% after many tops and bottoms.

This was a difficult hand for the N/S pairs, many ended in 4Sx.  Against Mary and Davina Gerry opened 1H and Mary (presumably playing strong jump overcalls) bid 2C. I bid a natural 2N and Davina bid 3S.  Gerry doubled and I left it in.
Gerry led 3C to Q, K and ruff and Davina played A and another diamond.  Gerry let me win this and I played the spade to his King.  Gerry followed with three rounds of hearts. I cashed QD and at this point I can't be sure if Davina started with 6 or 7 spades but playing a top club must be right and sure enough it promoted Gerry's 10S to put it 3 off and at least we equalled the scores of those defending 4Sx.

An annoying one against Russell and Len.  Russell with his poor 11 count and rubbish heart suit decided to open 1N.  I am ashamed to say I couldn't resist bidding an Astro 2D (with those spades?!).  Len bid 3N.
I led a small diamond and Russell has the obvious 10 tricks via a spade finesse (actually I discarded my spades on the hearts).
Now if I had passed, Len would have used Stayman and we would have been defending 4H which should make 10 (11 double dummy, discarding a club on the 3rd spade and playing A then QC to get a diamond round to the King) for an average.

Got a decent score against Sylvia and Louise.  I opened 1C and Sylvia bid 1S, round to me for 2C, Sylvia bid 2H, Louise corrected to 2S and Gerry bid 3C, passed out.
Sylvia led 8D taken by my Ace.  Presumably she would bid 2C with 5-5 majors, so Sylvia's hand must be 5-4-1-3, the trumps are breaking and I keep the danger hand out by AK and another club. As expected Sylvia wins the 3rd club and returns KS.  I take the Ace and cash my three trumps then cross to dummy for KQ of diamonds.  I am down to KT of hearts and 6S, Sylvia has AQ of hearts and QS.  I exited with QS and won KH at the end for 10 tricks.