Thursday 5 November

Playing N/S came first with 67%.  Some gifts of course but managed to do the right thing mostly and found some luck as below..

Here was a bit of luck. Elizabeth opened a multi 2D and I overcalled 2S.  Sheila bid 3H and this was passed round to me. Now at teams I pass of course but hate to have our contract stolen at Pairs. Partner surely has some points and therefore at most 2 spades. He has at most 3 hearts.  So worse case scenario 2-3-4-4 and if I double he chooses 4C. A good rule in bidding states : 'You shouldn't bid games/slams in the hope Partner has the perfect hand', the Macdonald Corollary states 'Don't not bid in the expectation Partner has the worst hand'.
So I doubled.
Gerry bid 4C (oh no, I hope he doesn't just have 4).  11 tricks later we had a top as Gerry managed to set up a long spade to give 6 clubs, a heart ruff, 2 diamonds and 2 spades.

The Strange Case of the Missing Diamond
We all make mistakes, some stupid, sometimes we are still suffering from jet-lag having returned from San Fransisco the week before.

Ivan East, opened a weak NT and, after Stayman, Helen passed 2H. This prevented me coming in as Helen could be expected to be 4-5 in the majors and so, luckily, I don't get to push them into 4H.

As we can see 10 tricks are stiff, however, Gerry led JH and I ducked to Ivan's Queen.  Ivan decided to take an immediate diamond finesse and ran the Queen to my King.

So I gave this a little thought and reckoned partner can have at most QC or, twice as likely, one of the top spade honours.  I can see a chance of keeping this to 9 tricks, I returned a diamond.

Ivan played a trump from table, I jumped up with AH and under-led my AS, the 9 in fact (possible diamond preference?).  Ivan covered the 9 with the 10 (The dog that didn't bark in the night, Ivan didn't take the Ace, so he doesn't have it). Gerry won the King and returned a club.
To rub salt in the wound Helen remarked, 'oh, no diamond ruff then'.

What do you open the North hand? 3C is out of the question, no top honour and an AK outside, that is not a pre-empt.
I hate to pass, I opened 1C.
So 1C - 1S - 2C - 3N.  What now?
Gerry could have a great 17 count, equally a 12 count and some hope of a great club suit opposite. The failure to bid hearts made a heart lead look certain, so even with an excellent hand 3N might have no chance.  I bid 4C and Gerry bid 5C.

Talk about lucky, I can only lose 1 club and 1 diamond.

If I had passed 3N Partner would have started a blog entitled
The Strange Case of the Missing Opening Points
And no jet-lag to excuse it.