My first match today was SBU against South Africa 2, and I watched Gerald Haase and Victor Silverstone (in a rejigged Scottish partnership) against Peta Balderson and Jenny Gautschi. The South African ladies were very charming, and even acknowledged me at the end of the match. The Scottish veterans however got a little heated (but only with each other), which made for some good viewing. It was fascinating to see close up how someone could make a (very forgivable) mistake in defence and still be thinking about it on the next hand when he was declarer. "I couldn't have played that worse" and "I'd agree with that" was the conversation I reported. But on the next board I could visibly see the Scots pulling themselves together and Haase made a great 3NT to level the tie. The high scoring match went down to the final deal and with good defence the SBU prevailed 39-29.
In every match each team has two pairs, which play against the two pairs of the opposition in different rooms. The 'Open Room' is designed for spectators, both physical and online, and the 'Closed Room' is mostly there to compare scores between the rooms. You don't get so many people watching the broadcasts in the Closed Room. There were only 30 people today, but they enjoyed it I think and a couple of spectators thanked me for the commentary. Since there was no expert commentator I stretched myself a bit and reported on the bridge too, mostly by relaying what other kibitzers were saying to me. This needed a lot of fast typing.
I also had been given a copy of all the deals in advance with computer analysis ("Guard this with your life!") which helped me appear more knowledgeable than I was.
For the next round I watched the England pair of Phil King and Cameron Small against the other South African team with Diana Balkin and Maureen Holroyd. We are playing in the rather plush Radisson Blu hotel,and all the chairs have seat covers. The English South Cameron Small very deliberately pulled his off before sitting down. Would he replace it at the end I wondered? He didn't. At one point the lights went out, and I was able to talk about that, to give it a live feel. The expert commentator paulg (Paul Gipson) mentioned another time they'd had to finish a match by the lights of mobile phones.
I made a real effort this match to try and pick up the spot cards of the players. This is hard when declarer is running a suit, and the player furthest from you is discarding fairly randomly. Sometimes though, it really matters and you need to report it correctly.
Here's an example of where it matters:
North has got to 4♥, and East leads the ♣A. The card West follows with is crucial here to tell East to stop playing Clubs (and switch to a Spade). Initially I missed the card West followed with and just clicked the ♣4. Actually she'd played the ♣T, which I believe was encouraging for that pair. I quickly undid my play and corrected it to the ♣T. East then continued with three rounds of Clubs. Declarer ruffed the third round, drew trumps and claimed the rest for 4♥+1.
On the other table game was defeated. East and West had bid and raised Clubs, and East amazingly underlead his ♣AKQ by leading the ♣7. Declarer played low from dummy letting West rather surprisingly win with his ♣T, and return a Diamond for East to ruff. The end result was 4♥-2. This and a few other game swings meant England won the match comfortably 50-1. At my table the English didn't realise they were doing well, and when Cameron Small peeked over my shoulder at the laptop at the end of the match he was rather surprised.
Here's me in my volunteer's T-shirt and lanyard:
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