Thursday 17 April

Playing N/S with Gerry came first with 62%. Of course you always need luck to get a good score

We were certainly lucky against Steve and Mike.  Mike opened West 1S which was passed round to Gerry who was a bit too strong to just bid 2D which can just be protective, so he doubled.  Mike bid 2S, I bid 3H and Gerry 3N. Now I really want to bid 4H but that QS made me stop and think (always a bad idea) and I passed 3N.
Right enough JS lead and the Queen wins the first trick. Gerry played heart to the King, ducked. Now you need two entries to enjoy the hearts and hey presto, Gerry laid down the Ace to fell a singleton Queen followed by club to the 9, QH to the Ace and all Mike could do was cash AS for 11 tricks.
Of course if AS is led, 3N goes down, in fact two down. 4H will always make.  Nobody else was in game.

A  real piece of luck which was unnecessary.  We had had a few bad boards and I didn't feel our score was much better than say 52%, so was on the look out for good scores.
Gerry opened South 2C and I made a good start by forgetting the system and bid 2H (we play as double negative). Gerry bid 3C and I bid 4N, Gerry 5C showing 4 Keycards.
Now this is enough for me to bid 7C, there are 11 certain tricks giving Gerry AK to 6 clubs, AD and AH and me only getting 1 diamond ruff.  Gerry must have more than this, never mind the prospect of two diamond ruffs. However I thought surely a few people can bid 7C on this hand.  So, looking for a score, I bid 7N. Gerry could have opened his hand 2C without the QH and I would have needed some luck.  As it was I have 14 top tricks and a top. I was correct that others would find 7C, but one went down(?) and if I had just bid 7C it would only have cost us 2 match points.