The format was seven rounds of six boards each. You start at a random table, and if you win you move up the room towards the top table. Lose, and you move down the room further into oblivion. Right at the start on Board One we let the opponents make 3NT+4. They thought they'd missed a slam, but actually 3NT+4 was a very good score for them. Me and Kris were both defending to try and beat the contract, which could never be beaten, so we let through an extra overtrick. Then on Board 3 Kris had
♠ ♥ Q432 ♦ KJ53 ♣ KQJT3.
He had an Acol meltdown and opened 1♦, which lead to playing 2♦ on a 4-2 fit, which he played nicely for only one down. Then on Board 4 he opened a bold 4♥ and made it doubled, and on Board 6 made an excellent overtrick in 4♠. Things were going quite well, with me being dummy.
We won the first round 12-8, and moved up the room a bit. In the second round Kris kept playing and I kept being dummy, and we won 14-6 to move up to Table 6. This turned out to be a high watermark. In round three against a very good pair they stuffed us full of overtricks. Then on Board 18 I was sitting South, and had a tricky matchpoints decision. Sadly, I bottled it.
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West opened 1♥ and Kris sitting North doubled. East bid 2♥, which is a great bid. I wasn't sure what to bid as South. I didn't really like my hand, and thought it was too flat, and lots of other excuses, so I just passed. We beat 2♥ by one trick for +50, but actually that was a bad score as we could make 2♠ (on a 4-3 fit) or even 2NT.
Next up was Board 13. This was undoubtedly the Board of the day. I promise you this isn't a misprint:
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Kris sitting North opened 1♣, and I replied 1♥. West overcalled 1NT and Kris doubled. This was passed out. I was sitting South, feeling good that we were going to beat this contract. Then, Kris lead the ♥J. I also had the ♥J in my hand. I stared at his lead for at least a minute, in disbelief. I was checking they were both Jacks, and checking they were both Hearts, again and again. Finally I called over the Tournament Director, who realised what had happened straight away, and assumed the cards had been wrongly placed in the wallet from the previous deal. Then we figured out that actually Kris had just kept all his cards from the last deal! Compare the North hand in this diagram with the one above.
Here's what must have happened - he finished the previous Board, shuffled his cards and put them down. Then, a few seconds later, picked them up, sorted them, and started bidding again! To be fair, he was sitting North and dealing with the Bridgemate, which no one enjoys doing. West said that when he saw dummy he was looking forward to it too as he thought he could make it easily - what he didn't know of course it that we were playing with a deck with nearly 50 points in it.
The Director ruled that we couldn't play the Board, and automatically awarded us an average minus (40%) and the opponents an average plus (60%). This 40% was actually one of our better deals, and we lost the round heavily. We lost the next round too, as by now we were both very hungry.
I had some coconut soup and a delicious coconut cake for lunch. The cake was so good I bought two to take away to give to Anna. I was feeling pretty relaxed - I think I'd only played about three hands so far. In fact, in the whole day, of 42 boards, I played only 5, and was dummy 19 times. I think this might have been because of my conservative bidding, and Kris's bold bidding. I'm pretty sure we were the only ones playing 6♣x-2 on Board 11.
After the break we emerged refreshed and had a fun match against Jun and Yvonne. I thought we were doing well, but we somehow lost this one too. There was a lowpoint on Board 27. I opened 1♦, Yvonne showed both majors with 2♦, and Kris ended up having a punt at 3NT with no Spade stop. The hand quickly unravelled for 3NT-5. Then Jun and Yvonne avoided 3NT and bid an excellent 4♥ on Board 30, so maybe on balance we did deserve to lose the match.
We were now firmly in the bottom half of the field. In the penultimate round we played Frances and Ronnie from Glasgow. Like I do in every round, I decided that now was the time to make our move. This time I meant it though. I decided to stop being shy, and on Board 34 powered to 6♥ based on a 5-2 Heart fit. When this made I knew it was a good round, and we moved back up the room a bit.
On the final round I kept up the momentum, and bid up to the maximum on the final board. I've starred the conventional bids in the auction below:
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Kris sitting South opened 1♦, I replied 1♠, and he bid 2♣. All normal so far. Then I bid the fourth suit, 2♥, which we play as fourth suit forcing to game. Now that we are forced to game we can both relax and show the shape of our hands. Kris showed his 5-5 shape with 3♣, and I showed a sixth spade with 3♠ (If Kris had three Spades he'd have bid them last round, so for me to still have interest in Spades I must have six of them). Kris raised me to 3♠, and now we've now found the eight card Spade fit. I can now figure out that his shape must be 2-1-5-5 or maybe 2-0-6-5. The important this is that he can only have at most one Hearts, so looking at my hand we've no Hearts losers - and if Spades are good no losers in any other suit either.
I bid 4NT Blackwood, and Kris's 5♥ reply showed 2 keycards (the ♣A and ♦A) and no queen of trumps - i.e. no Queen of Spades. Since I know he doesn't have the Queen of Spades I know that 7♠ is going to be a dodgy contract, depending on the Spade finesse at best. But, I slowly thought to myself, if we have another trump suit, we'll be able to set up the Spades by playing off the Ace and King and ruffing one in his hand. There's still a chance of a grand slam, just not in Spades. I bid 5NT to ask for Kings. He bid 5♦, which could show one King or the King of Diamonds depending what system you play. I didn't care, which he had, and went ahead and bid a massive 7♣.
Kris did remarkably well to pass this, given that he only had five Clubs to the Ten and I'd shown no Club support before. West lead a Club, and when the ♣J dropped from East it was nearly home. He drew a second round of trumps, then crossed to the South hand via ruffing a Heart. He ruffed his ♦2, the only possible loser in the South hand. He could now draw trumps and claim. So, in fact his Diamonds were so strong he never needed my Spades. And in fact you can make 7NT just by cashing top tricks as well. But I prefer being in 7♣, and I think this beat most of the field who were in 6♠. Fools.
With this strong finish we came 11th overall, good enough for the 2nd Bronze prize. Full rankings are here, congratulations to the overall winners Catriona Gardiner & Malcolm Mccardle.
Afterwards we went to Bennetts Bar with the other juniors (in bridge terms I'm still a junior) for a drink. We also met up with some of the bridge players from the Scottish Pairs Trials. But make no mistake, the big event of the day was taking place at the Carlton Club. If you are interested, the results of the Scottish trials can be found on the SBU site here with a brief report on Paul Gipson's blog here.
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