Running the marathon

Not literally, obviously. I struggle to run for twenty six metres, let alone miles.
But Saturday saw my sixth bridge event in six days - the Scottish Plate match versus HODGSON.
I went into this match still looking for my first Scottish Cup or Scottish Plate victory, and after today's match, I am still looking. My hopes were the same as anyone in my situation: that my team found their best form and the opposition did not.
Unfortunately, the second aspect of that particular hope did not happen. Our opponents were on inspired form and went back to Glasgow with a comfortable victory. The difference? We didn't take our chances. I feel the door was open for us for a fair few swings, but we never took them. Conversely, our opponents played a steady game throughout, gifting us absolutely nothing. We scored a total of 31 IMPs which tells its own story. You (or at least we) don't win a Scottish Cup Match scoring less IMPs than boards. With a lesser experienced team last year, we scored more than twice as many IMPs than boards against SHORT and still were thrashed.
Oh well, there's always next year.

Monday, Wednesday and Thursday was business as usual. Three club nights, 77 boards. Nothing to write home about. Obviously Phoenix had plenty to discuss, as it was a tutorial night, but I didn't stick around.

DONSIDE LEAGUE

This event I have played in for quite a few years, and to my knowledge I have never blogged about it. I seemingly do this event a dis-service. I can't have anyone thinking it isn't important enough to be worthy of recognition. It's a good wee tourney.
The Donside League is a non-SBU event. What is the difference between an SBU event and a non-SBU event? No Masterpoints, and less cost is the answer. And to some extent, a change in who is participating. The Donside league is not played in the City, and I described it to someone who was asking as "the Shire's version of the Sybil Hay" i.e. the Aberdeenshire Teams of Four.
The qualification is that players from certain clubs within Aberdeenshire may form Teams of Four and play in this league. There used to be a flaccid rule about the clubs being specifically within some geographical relation to the River Don, but this (to my knowledge) has never exactly been hard-and-fast, and I think it would be to the detriment of the tournament if it was. For example, my team (under it's old name) was named after a completely different river (Ury), albeit a river that converges with the Don.  Our new name is Buchan, which is a fairer reflection of our four players' links to the shire. If anyone asks, I point out that partner and I live about five minutes' walk from the River Don.
The format is eight board matches with IMPs converted to VP scores. Three a night, except for the final night, where there is one more match followed by a Pairs aggregate.
We were in the running going into Tuesday's round, which was quite lucky considering we'd only won three out of six matches so far. We were also not playing with our regular team-mates for this round as they were otherwise engaged.
For Round Three, we faced MURRAY, URYSIDE and TARVES. These are actual team names, as opposed to Captain names which you get in a lot of SBU events. I actually think this does nothing to hinder organisation and can add to the fun of an event, but really, it doesn't matter.
Our stand-in team-mates were on fire against Murray, and a close-to-par offering from us was enough to yield an 18-2 VP win. That was a great start against a mid-table team capable of beating anyone.
Uryside are a team that are always somewhere near the top, and sure enough, 8 solid boards of bridge were played. There weren't many swings and my favourite suit combination was:

9 x opposite A K Q 10 7 in dummy.

I was playing in 1NT; an overcall over my RHO's suit bid. I had to play this suit for one loser (or four winners), with only one outside entry to dummy. I ran the nine (not a hard decision), dropping the 8 on my right, before playing another hook to pick up five diamond tricks and set me on my way to 9 tricks in total. No missed Game by the way; one of those ones I wouldn't make if I was in.

What swung the match was a 4 Hearts Contract by me. If I remember right, I opened 1 Spade with 5 of them but no honours (there's no point in calling a ten an honour unless you're playing rubber bridge). Before I knew it, I found myself in 4 Spades missing the Ace and King, but luckily, with J x x of hearts in dummy opposite a doubleton A K, I managed to convince RHO to rise with the queen on the second round and found a pitch for ten tricks. 12-8 was the final score.

The third match was against the lower ranked TARVES team, and was full of Game contracts (mostly their way) that didn't make. Luckily, I found myself in one such absurd Game, but made. Our team mates did the trick at the other table, and when the dust cleared on a set full of bad splits and harsh fortune for whoever was Declarer we walked away with 17 VPs.

This put us second, two VPs behind STRATHBOGIE, who we have already played. We have four difficult matches to attend to in the two coming rounds, so we are in no way favourites, but we'll carry on regardless.

DISTRICT TEAMS OF FOUR (Round 5)

Last time I reported, we were doing rather well in this, to the point of being a very dark horse for the Sybil Hay trophy. This round threatened to end that challenge. Playing East-West, Lessurl and I were to play twelve boards against PETERS, before a match against ROSS.
  The Peters team has four club players, who are all capable of holding their own in a field such as this. They are the team with more 20-0 defeats this season than any other, which is annoying because if it is their day, they will win. Sometimes you get teams like that, but if you lose against a team that all of your rivals are taking 20 from, you know your challenge is over. In other words, they've probably had a share of bad luck to have five zeros thus far, evidenced by the fact they are not bottom.
  Things did not look good from our point of view. Our opponents gifted nothing, and made one or two good part score contracts. I doubled a making Game (I felt justified but won't do it again in a hurry - oh wait; I've done it since). They did eventually over-stretch themselves on one board, and we collected 800, but the rest of the "good" boards came in the form of bidding two ultra thin Games, plus one that was not actually there but did not come with an instruction manual for the defence.
  Of course, we could not score up immediately; we had to play our second match whilst our team-mates played the twelve boards we'd just played.
  ROSS has been flying of late. After a bad start with 6/40 in October, they then scored 37, 38 and 35. Our match therefore was between title challengers and title dark horses. It was almost a total part score battle. We did not think this would suit our team, and we were right, but what could we do? There were no Games to go for in the match - at all. Naturally, both sides competed in the auctions, trying to stop the other side finding the optimum contract. There was only one card play error and that was ours, so things looked bad until the very last board. Lessurl and I have patience - we can sit it out when we are not getting the board we want. Lack of games does not mean lack of interest. But for South, it was unthinkable to have twelve boards without a Game, and therefore South bid to 5 Diamonds on board 12, calmly doubled by Lessurl for 500. A swing of 14 IMPs from the last two boards was enough to edge the match 13-7, keeping both teams' title hopes alive. We beat Peters 19-1, and have moved up to fourth.
  There has been a change at the top. The HAY team got their second 40 night of the season, proving that they are apt to score when it matters. Suddenly they lead MOWAT by 10 VPs. In fact, three VPs separate 2nd and 4th, with ROSS just one ahead of us. Hay is certainly in pole position but there really is all to play for. His team play both Mowat and Ross on the final night, so either one of them could pip him to the post. Meanwhile, we do not play any Contenders, so our Game plan is simple: Play as well as we can; hope that we score enough VPs with the other Contenders all duffing each other up. I still doubt that we will win (the other teams are not going to lie down; we could lose both matches), but we're going to give it a go.

There endeth the marathon. I'm not happy it has taken so long to post, but there it is. Hopefully it won't take so long to post on the Reid Trophy.