Thursday 9 August

Playing N/S with Gerry came first with 65%. As usual had a few gifts but also, crucially, managed to avoid errors which always leads to a good score.

Got a top on this interesting board.  Ian and Cathy have a 2H gadget to show this type of East hand weak with both majors.  So Ian opened 2H and Gerry bid 3C, Cathy raised to 3H and I am too good for an immediate 5C, so bid 4H.  Ian raised the stakes to 5H and Gerry bid 6C.  Back to Ian who certainly knows there is no defence and gambles on 6H which Gerry, after a little thought, doubles.
Now normally it could be a bit risky leading the singleton spade into Declarer's second suit, but Gerry knows my 4H bid is shortage and I MUST have AS at least to be looking for a slam.  So JS to my King, AS, spade ruff and our 3 other Aces for -5 and 1100.  However if Ian had passed my 4H, Gerry could have used RKCB and we would have been in 7C.

 Here Gerry opened 1D, Ronnie doubled, I bid 2C, Gerry 2N and I bid 3N.
Ronnie led JC which Gerry ran to his Queen.  He then played hearts, Ronnie taking the second and returning 10C to Dummy's King. Gerry took the rest of the hearts, Ronnie discarding a spade.  Now came two diamond winners ending in Dummy but Ronnie had to let two clubs go to hold on to three spades. Gerry exited with a club and Ronnie had to lead from QJx of spades giving Gerry 3 spade tricks and 10 overall for a joint top.

Managed to bid slam here which was inevitable after I opened 1S.  Some people open 1C with a weak 5-5 as you can never bid the suit if you open 1S.  There is certainly a lot to be said for that but I always prefer a good 5 card major and my spades are certainly the most important feature of my hand.
So we simply bid 1S - 2D - 2S - 4N - 5C (1) - 6S

Charles led a trump, I drew three rounds ending in Dummy and there is nothing to this hand but playing clubs for one loser.  The only way I see to do that is Ace and another.  Alex couldn't even give me a guess by playing low and I claimed as QH went on the second top diamond.