Wednesday 27 August

Playing N/S with Gerry came 1st with 62%.

Had a bit of luck early on.  There is a lot to say for opening 1S on the North hand, you are liable to find yourself in a spade contract with a 5-2 fit when partner has 3 hearts but it might be the only way to get the suit in play.  However I've found having a 6 card major is a good thing and opened 1H. I've struck lucky when partner bids 2N, game force in hearts.  I bid 3D (singleton) and partner 3H (strong).  I now bid 3S and Gerry bid 4N, I showed 1 or 4, Gerry bid 5H and I crossed my fingers and bid 6H. Lewis as East quite rightly doubled and Alan led a diamond to King, Ace and ruff.  two rounds of hearts and I conceded the AS.

Only a few of us found 3N on this board, the others went down on what is really a stiff contract.
After two passes I opened 1H and Martin doubled, Gerry bid 2D and I bid my automatic 2N which Gerry raised to 3.
Martin led 6C round to my Q, I played JD, Martin tried KC (best chance of killing the diamonds if I am doubleton club).  I won the Ace and played another diamond, spade now which I can win in Dummy and clear the diamonds for 10 tricks.
There just isn't any defence to stop this, heart or spade leads can only keep me to 9. Some West's will have opened 3H.  I would certainly have liked to bid 3N with the North hand, but would probably have passed.

Paul opened 1H as West (?) and I bid 2H.  Nat raised to 4H and Gerry bid 4N which I converted to 5C.  This was passed out.
Nothing in the play, AH, heart ruffed, AK of trumps, A, K, ruff a spade and claim 12 tricks.
Only three of us are in clubs, everyone else defending a heart part score. I presume Paul and Nat are strong NT here and don't play checkback, so has to open 1H.
Strong NT with checkback will open West 1D, others a weak 1NT.  In either case what would I bid now? Over 1D I would pass, hoping it goes 1D - 1H - 2H and I can bid 2N to show this distributional hand. Over a weak 1N I feel really stuck. Not surprised everyone was defending heart part scores. Shows how much luck there is in bridge, I was against a system that let me describe my hand right away.

Against Mary and Moira our bidding went:

 P - 1S - 2D - 2S
3D- 3S - 4C - P
4D - P - 5D - passed out.
Wish I'd bid 4H over the 4C, but 5D it was.
Gerry received a spade lead and ruffed.
Assuming 5 heart tricks, if club finesse wins then negotiate trumps for 1 loser.  If West has KC, you need a club ruff and just one diamond loser (at least you'll know now where KD almost certainly is).
Gerry crossed to AH, finessed QC and Moira continued a spade. Gerry ruffed, crossed to KH, led QD to K and Ace. Now played AC, ruffed, heart ruffed, two down. Crossing to Dummy to lead QD probably led to an extra one down but could have gained from a defensive error.
The only other two pairs in diamonds made 11 and the hands' sheet says you make 11. I can't see it, so I put it into Bridgify.
Spade lead, ruff, 8D (must be 8), play low from Dummy whether covered or not. Say it is not covered and runs to King. Club back, win Ace, play another club.  A club can now be ruffed by the 10, draw trumps and make your 5 hearts.
If 8D is covered by the 9, you must play small to make sure you get that club ruff. Wonder how those other two tables made 11???

Thursday 14 August

Playing N/S with Gerry in a Teams at the club accompanied by Russell and Len we came in the middle with an average score.
In truth there wasn't a lot in the hands and part scores played a major part.

There were just two hands I played that were interesting.

Rod opened 2H, I doubled and Gerry bid 3D which shows at least 8 points.  I bid 3N.
Alex led 8H.  I considered what would happen if I won the first round, could I play the diamonds to keep Alex out? However even with 5 diamonds I only have 8 tricks and have to guess where the black Kings are.
So 8H was ducked all round, Rod won the second with Ace and cleared the suit (playing JH) while I discarded a spade. and Alex a McKinney 3C. Alex is no danger now so I finessed JD. Noting Rod's JH, Alex exited with 9S to Rod's 3 and my Q.  If these cards are genuine then ROd started with KJ103 of spades but nobody bothers about any rules for weak twos these days. However I am fairly confident that Rod has KS and therefore Alex has KC.  Iran the diamonds, Rod's first discard being a McKinney 10H and then Ace and another club for my 9 tricks.
400 didn't get a lot of imps as Len was left in 2H at the other table and went three off for -300.

Six pairs were in 4H but four went 1 off (including our opponents).
David Shenkin led 4C.  This looked unusual, not likely to lead a little doubleton and Jxxx(x) isn't much of a lead, so I thought it might be singleton and this greatly increases the chance of a bad trump split.
On a 3-2 break there are ten top tricks but I thought I should take some insurance.  Now if it is a singleton and 4 hearts there is no worry about losing a ruff. So I played for a spade ruff, I won AC and played Ace and another spade.  Cameron won this and played back JC. David thought for a while and rightly discarded a diamond (if he ruffs I have my original 10 top tricks --- that is why there was no worry about a ruff). However I just played a third top club and discarded a diamond.  David ruffed but I had my contract by ruffing a spade to make up for the lost club. Note if it had been a doubleton club or four or five to the Jack, I would have made 11 tricks by playing for the spade ruff.
I assume those that went down immediately drew trumps and when they had a loser tried a diamond to the Q to no avail.

Thursday 8 August

Playing N/S with Gerry came second with 57%. Could have won in so many ways.  In fact coming into the last three boards we were well ahead and both of us contrived to get a bottom each in two of the boards.

We had an interesting set against Issy and Gerald.

Gerry opened South 1D, round to Gerry who doubled and Gerry bid 2C.  This was passed out, you certainly can't blame Issy with his 3 points.  At Pairs Gerry should maybe double again but that could go wrong if I have majors.
Issy led 3H and Gerry cashed AK then played KD.  Gerry took AK of clubs and exited with a diamond. Gerry played back a heart (mistake) which Gerry ruffed. Another diamond leaves Gerry end played (should have cashed the diamond last time before exiting with heart).  He has to play another heart for ruff and discard or lead a spade.  He chose 2S, Gerry ran this to J and Q and had the rest for a second top.

 1C - 1S - 1N - 3N was how we bid game.  Gerald reasonably reckoned that his Partner will have to defeat this and tried 9H lead to Q and my Ace. I played 10C to Gerald's K.  This is where a convention called Smith-peter comes in very handy.  Issy would play a high club if he liked the heart lead and a small club if he didn't.  However they don't play that so Gerald doesn't know where KH is and tries JH. I won the K and played 9C to Issy's Ace.  Issy returned 2H to my master 10.  So I had 10 tricks set up,  I played out my clubs and top diamonds then KS and spade to the Ace, Gerald lets a lot of diamonds go. I am now in hand with a small spade and heart, Dummy has Q9 spades with the 10 having gone. Surely Gerry had started with J95 of hearts, if he had the 4th he would have led small. Does he have a spade and QD or Jx spades? I felt 90% sure he had the two spades but then thought I've been given an extra heart trick, don't throw it away.  I just played the top spadde for 10 tricks and a joint top.
However, on reflection I should have finessed.  If Gerald has QD then he started with QT9xx, SURELY he would have led 10D, not 9H.

 Well we have two good scores, it couldn't last and Gerald got us back on the last board of the set.
He opens 1H and Issy bids 2D (I think they play 2 over 1 game force). Anyway Gerald bids 3H, Issy 4H and Gerald goes on to 6H. Gerry led a spade to Q and A.  Gerald ruffs a spade, heart to Q and that was just one trump trick for us.  A zero as nobody else bid it.

Another interesting set was against Cathy and Peter.

A near bottom on the first one.  The bidding went:
1C - 2Ca - 3N - 4H
Peter now bid 5C passed out.
I led 8H thinking if parrtner has say AQx(x) over KJx (or vice versa) then this would be the best start.  On reflection I should reckon that Peter won't have more than 1 heart and should maybe have led KS even though I expected AS in Dummy.
Anyway  a spade or diamond leads puts it two down. The heart lead gave two quick spade discards and 11 tricks made.
Our 4H will make, just losing 3 heart tricks and setting the spades up. Cathy's 3N goes 1 down as long as Gerry leads Ace and another spade and we cash three followed by two diamonds. However would South be tempted to lead a heart keeping AS over an imagined King?

On the next hand Cathy opened 1S and Gerry gave himself an extra point for the 109 spades and bid 1N.  I checked for four hearts and bid 3N.
Peter tried 2D to the J and Q and Gerry returned 6D to the 4 and 5! Another diamond was taken by Peter's Ace and now QS, ducked, 7S to Jack and King.
Gerry now runs all his clubs and diamond squeezing Cathy and made 10 tricks.
Only one other Pair was in 3N, by N on a JD lead and they went 1 off. So a complete top.

Again 1S by Cathy, 1N by Gerry and a direct 3N by me. This looks like a flattish board but less that half the field were in 3N.
Peter led a heart and Gerry won the third round.
He was the only one to make 10 tricks via five clubs, two spades, two diamonds and a heart.
Another top.  Pity about a few errors on other boards

Wednesday 6 August

Playing N/S with Adrianne came just above average with 53%.  I got a complete 0 on the second hand we played.

Our bidding was:

  P  -  1H  -  P  -  2C
  P  -  2D  -  P  -  3D

Adrianne now has a difficult decision on whether to go for 5D or 3N and decides to try 3S.  I bid 3N and there we played.
Nat led 2S so there was no real point in holding up but I ducked Paul's 10S anyway and won the continuation in Dummy.  I crossed with a diamond and ran 10H to the Jack. If it had drawn K or A I would have 9 tricks via another lead to the 9 but now I had no chance. I won the spade return and cashed my diamonds on which Paul discarded clubs, exited with QH and lost 2 spades and 3 hearts.  5D does make, diamond lead win in hand, play a heart, West wins, plays a spade, play another heart, West another spade then AC, heart ruff, spade ruff, heart ruff, club ruff to hand and win the rest.
Some made 3N on a spade lead, must have been some strange discarding by West.

A good score against Dave and Bob when we defeated Bob's 1N by two tricks. This just needs careful defence.

I led 10C, Bob ducked in Dummy as did Adrianne. I'm now fairly certain that the layout is at appears and so can tell partner where my entry is by continuing with JC.  Anyway Adrianne wins and reliably returns 9S.  Bob takes the A and cashes 4 diamonds on which I discard 3 hearts. He now plays a heart to the Q and A ( I discard a club) and Adrianne carefully plays the JS which I overtake, cash my remaining clubs and we win the last spade.

After two passes Adrianne would normally open in 3rd seat, but passed.  Katie opened 1D, Liz raised to 2D and that came round to me and I bid 2H passed out.
Liz led a diamond which I won in hand and played a heart to K and A. Katie finds the club return and they cash 3 clubs and exit with a diamond won in Dummy.  I ran 9H to Liz's Q and now I know for certain Katie has QS. Liz did well to exit with 4th diamond but crucially I have 8H so to no avail whether Katie ruffs or not. I won, drew the last trump and played AS, spade finesse for 8 tricks.
Most people were in 2H rather than 2S (maybe South opened 1S, North bid 2H and they passed). However most went off but they didn't have the information I had and probably took the spade finesse the wrong way.