Life-Long ambition fulfilled

Well, more precisely, a 5 year ambition "kind of" fulfilled. When I played on the Scotland Peggy Bayer team 5 years ago, Wales did not enter a team. Curiously, the event will (as 5 years ago) be held in Scotland, and again, Wales are unable to field an Under 20 team. Consequently, I have never played a Junior International against Wales and I thought it might be a running thing that they would be a home nation that I wouldn't play against. That was until last night, when that was "sort of" put to bed.
  The Welsh U25 team have been training hard (as I'm sure, all the home nations have been), and yesterday their regieme included a training match against 4 of the Scotland Under 20s - except one of them had connection problems so proximo and I alternated as partners for 009domino. Cue a chance to play against Wales.
  The match consisted of three eight board matches. I was kibitzing the first stanza. You wouldn't have known all 8 players were juniors given 6 flat boards. Scotland found themselves 7-2 ahead at "One third time" thanks to a single board:

Proximo and 009domino competed well (but naturally) in spades. Since neither of their opponents held any of the top honours in diamonds, they were allowed to play in 2 Spades. Proximo went on to make 9 for +140, whilst at the other table the Scottish pair competed to 3 Diamonds, bought the contract, and made 10 tricks for +270 on the board overall.
  So, Scotland had a slight lead - probably a safe enough time to deploy me. How many IMPs could bad judgement decisions cost? Answer: 3 (I cannot legitimately claim responsibility for the other 19 IMPs we lost in that set, although my team mates might beg to differ)
  Here was an interesting call. We gained an IMP on this board but could so easily have lost 12:

There were a couple of key decisions here. Firstly, there was the issue of whether I should rebid 2 Spades or 2NT. The 2 Diamond bid has balanced my hand, but without heart cover I fell that 2NT tells a lie and 2 Spades doesn't. With 1 stop in the unmentioned suits and ace of mine, partner raised to 4 Spades.
  As you can see with the Double dummy view, 4 Spades should not make, and 3NT is 100%. But 3NT is only solid owing to a 3-3 heart break, which is only a 33% chance. The rest of the time, 4 Spades is just as bad (or good). It is unlikely I hold up to 3 hearts so 4 Spades seems reasonable from partner's hand. Jonny lead the 5 of clubs and I won with the 10 in hand. I played up to the Ace of spades and back to my KQ, drawing the trumps, pitching a club in attempt to give Jonny the wrong idea of the hand. Sure enough (and luckily), when I lay down the queen of diamonds, he does not cover - and all roads lead to ten tricks now. 3NT at the other table made 9, but I did not know this at the time - for all I knew we'd just had a Game swing. Unbeknownst to me, this hand had just put us 14-0 up in the set.
  I'll skip past the next two boards, where a 14-0 lead in the set became a 14-15 defecit. (Oh, all right then; I missed a diamond discard to not take an overtrick and I doubled a cold Game when our counterparts made an undoubled sacrifice). However, I was happy with the following board:

My Hand                              jonny-r   009domino   jack army   Alisdair
K Q J 4 3                                                                     1D             1S
K J 10 3                                 Pass            2C              Pass            2H
10 9                                       Pass            3C              Pass             ?
A 4

3 Clubs or 5 Clubs - stick or twist?
Partner is a good bet for KQxxx of clubs. She probably holds an outside ace - or a diamond stop. If she has the maximum amount of major cards that she could have (five), then that leaves two diamonds - or an extra club. For me I felt 2 Diamond losers were likely and she only needs one more for Pass from me to be correct. In the end, it is an easy choice. Partner will make 5 Clubs only when she has the best hand she could have. I passed. In fact, partner held:

A 6
Q 9 4
8 5
K Q 10 9 7 3

Pass is right as partner has 3 losers in top tricks. In 5, she should surely go down. In 3, she makes 12, as LHO has to look for 2 more tricks and begins the campaign by leading the singleton 2 of spades. Partner lets this run to the ace, draws trumps (which break 3-2) and takes K, Q and J of spades, pitching her two diamonds. The defence must come to the Ace of hearts but that's all they get. I must confess that, again our gain was as much by luck as it was design. Our Welsh counterparts bid to 4 Spades but were defeated by the 5-1 break (North holding 10 9 8 7 5)
  With all this bad luck the Welsh players had, I'll compliment them for the 7 IMPs they won on the last board to take the second stanza by a point. With the same contract being bid in both rooms, it came down to this play problem:

A 10 9 6
K 6
8 5
A K 9 8 4

Q 8 7 2
A J 10 7 2
7 6
Q 10

Contract: 3 Spades
Lead: Diamond honour

I lead QD followed by the 10, which partner overtook with the Jack, before leading a small club. Declarer rose with the queen, and played a small spade to the ten, beaten by the King. My partner tried the Queen of Hearts next, but Declarer won with the King and played a small spade, noting a discard of the curse of Scotland, and finessing through my Jack. After cashing the ace of spades, he claimed 10 tricks without further ado. It was played by North at the other table but he suffered no better a defence - I shall not post on the Internet how he played the hand.

The score after 16 boards: Scotland 28-24 Wales

I sat out the last eight boards which was a shame, with everything to play for. (I'll leave it to others to suggest which side it was a shame for). Wales battled into an 8-0 lead but after one pair overbid to 4 Spades when only 8 tricks were there, the score in the stanza was suddenly 8-8. It really could've gone either way, but in the end the Welsh side were struck yet another horrible lie of the cards after getting to the right (but not correct, as it turned out) contract on the penultimate board:

South(D)          North                   South                               North
    1S                  2H                     A K 9 5 4 3 2                  Q 6
    3S                  4NT                  ---                                    A Q 9 6 4 2
    5C                  6S                     K 7 6 4                            10
                                                    A J                                   K Q 10 3

009domino was sitting West and lead Ace and another diamond. South ruffed this, but found out on trick 3 that the contract was doomed - on cashing the QS it transpired East had all four missing trumps and was bound to get one. Wales lost 13 IMPs instead of gaining 12 for bidding a 90.44% slam. Incidentally, if West did not want to lead her ace and instead chose a heart lead, 6 Spades can make on a trump coup.

Final score: Scotland 49-45 Wales

In WBF terms Scotland were 1 IMP better than a draw. I think it is a moral victory for both teams. The Scotland Under 20s will be encouraged by a win (however narrow) against an Under 25 side. The Welsh team will know that if only the cards had been a little nicer to them they could've had a convincing win themselves. I certainly hope they have better luck in the Junior Camrose in eleven days' time. (Except against Scotland; patriotic loyalty and all that).

You will notice I have not mastered the art of embedding bridge movies into blog posts. Hence the hand-typed scrawl to describe hands. Any help in this department much appreciated.