Thursday 19 March

Playing N/S with Gerry came 1st with 64.5%.  We had a poorish start, OK middle and a storming finish.

The very first board Nat took a complete top off us.

Jim opened 1D, Nat 1H, Jim bid 3C and Nat 3S and Jim 4H.
I led a trump to J and Q.  Nat has two spade losers, a trump and maybe a diamond.  However the diamonds can take care of the spades if he sets them up before drawing trump.  So what is the best way?
Nat chose to play AK of diamonds felling Gerry's Q.  He now ducks a heart to me and I am powerless.  There is still a trump in Dummy to ruff a spade, Nat is getting rid of two spades on the diamonds, he has 11 tricks.
Well played.

We had four complete tops out of the last 5 boards. The exception was this one.
After two passes I opened 1S, Katie overcalled 2H and Gerry bid 2S.  I felt I had to give partner some leeway at Match points and I bid a conservative 3S. Gerry also decided to downplay his hand and passed.

As we can all see 4S is stiff even losing a spade as the heart loser goes on the KD.  That wasn't quite what I managed to do.

Katie led 10H and I see the hand as win K, lead a diamond and as Katie is likely to have Ace either she fails to rise or if she takes it I win the heart continuation and throw my heart loser on KD.
Now the first trick went 10, 3, J and K and I realised right away that Edna will be singleton. Better see about spades first.  I laid down AS and Katie shows out.  This hand is falling apart. If I lead a diamond now, Katie wins, heart ruffed, club back and with no entry to Dummy QS and a heart still to lose, down 1.  I've really blown it.
I decided the only way to recover is hope that Katie has AC, if I get into Dummy, finesse a spade and draw another then Edna is ruffing with her trump winner.  I led a club to the Jack but Edna wins Ace and the rest is as expected.
My initial play is quite reasonable but maybe I should have thought more at trick 1. Katie is likely to have 6 hearts as her suit is poor. Moreover when Dummy went down I thought we should really be in game.  If others have bid 4S I should be playing assuming it goes down and concentrate on 9 tricks.  I should have gone up and with AH right away and with a 6-1 heart split and again playing for 4S to go off, I should finesse a spade at trick 2.
Maybe easy to see now, but I should have thought more when Dummy went down. That's what separates the winners from the losers more than anything else.