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