A653
1072
10954
K3
KJ107
AKQ
KJ8
AJ6
Contract: 4 Spades
Opening Lead: 3 Diamonds
No opposition bidding
After RHO wins the Ace of diamonds and returns a small one, I am faced with the decision between playing the Jack, to guard against the singleton lead, or play the King with the hope of winning the trick.
Despite the fact that this looks very like a singleton lead, I reason I should play the King. If LHO led from Qxxx (quite possible), then playing the Jack risks coming down after it loses to the Queen, followed by a diamond ruff and a failed guess in the trump suit. Unfortunately, the King is ruffed, but I now take advantage of the extra chance. I win the club return with the Jack (a heart return would have been no more successful), and then unblock clubs. I now cash my 4 winners in the rounded suits, pitching a diamond in dummy. A small spade to the Ace is next. When both defenders follow, I can now confidently play a small spade off table with intent to finesse if RHO follows small. Losing the finesse is of no consequence since that will have exhausted all the opposing trumps. LHO will be forced to give me a ruff and discard. As it happens, the Queen appears, so although I have to give up the diamond I still have ten tricks.
That was "previously", when I was entertaining thoughts on updating this blog regularly. Since then, there have been a number of things I could've blogged about and didn't, but in my defence, November and December is a busy time.
So Happy New Year, and on to my first major event of 2017: The District Teams of Four, Round 3. Things have changed since the last time I blogged about this competition. For one thing, I'm not the Convener any more. Those rains have been handed over to Abigail Wilson, and she has put her own stamp on it, while I get to take a back seat and concentrate on playing. Well, that was the plan. On Round 1 I had to pull a movement out of my sleeve at short notice, and I'm not sure the use of the continuous VP scale has been popular (I'll get over it).
For another thing, none of my original team remain. Abi has moved on because
We are not defending Champions however, and my team consist of 3 players that have not been on my team (in this event) before. We're not the strongest incarnation of a team Captained by me and we don't pretend to be, but we hoped to be "dark horses" for the title.
The premise was interesting enough. Nine teams, one Round Robin, 14 board matches. I like long matches (have I mentioned that enough?). and against the best players in the District it is a stern test. It is competitive - of the nine teams, at the start of the season I'd have said 6 have a genuine chance of being Champions, if I count my own team. After two rounds (four matches), the results seem to bear that out, although it's not the original 6. The standings were:
Bill Ross: 56.04
Maureen Mowat: 48.38
Alisdair McLeod: 48.25
Norman McLeod: 48.00
Sandy Duncan: 47.18
Abigail Wilson: 36.45
Maggie Payne: 27.45
Donald Campbell: 26.10
Loraine Findlay: 22.15
Of course, that does not tell the full story so a little context. Donald Campbell is one of the 6 teams I expected to be "Contenders". However, his first match was against my team and it was one of those where my team could do no wrong; we collected 19.47VPs from that match. They won their other match that night, but not by much, and that was against my Dad, who, with all due respect, is not going to be District Teams of Four Champion (although his whole team are definitely good enough to have a major say in who is). After a shock defeat by Findlay, and another thrashing at the hands of Duncan, it seems his team's chances are all but over. I do predict, however, that his team will rise up the table and one or more of the "Contenders" will have their title hopes scuppered as a result.
Conversely, my Dad's team are doing well and are still within half a match of the summit at the half way stage. Unfortunately, it could be argued that his team are in a false position with pre-season favourites Duncan, Champions Mowat, Challengers Wilson and Champions Elect Ross to play. On the other hand, it is an opportunity for them to pull of a "Leicester City".
Bill Ross has consistently put together a very strong team year upon year and yet has somehow never won it as far as I can remember. This, however, I am pretty sure, will be his year. Not only does he have an 8VP lead at the half way stage, but he has played all 4 of the other Contenders that are still in the hunt. The title is theirs to throw away. That's my Half Time prediction and I don't care who knows it.
As for my team? I'm just glad if we can still call ourselves "Contenders". 3 wins and 1 heavy defeat in the first half leaves us with no margin of error, and we have to hope for at least 1 shock result in other matches.
So, for Round 3.
First up for partner and I was a "must-win" match against bottom-of-the-table Findlay. Loraine and I know each other very well as we work together on a lot of District issues. She was fielding a couple of substitutes for this match and it was hard to predict what the net result would be. One was Sandra Schwitz, who most would argue strengthens the line-up somewhat. The other was a 15 year old, who I will here refer to as "my young padouin", as he shows great promise and I have taken him under my wing in club games where the chance has arisen. For that reason I know that when he sets his mind to it, he is a formidable opponent and very unpredictable. I was expecting a tough match - and that's exactly what I got.
The very first board, I held:
K109
AKJ8743
---
A106
(All Vul)
LHO is Dealer and it goes Pass-Pass-1S to me. I double, with the intention of rebidding hearts. LHO bids 2 Spades, and sure enough this is passed round to me, so I say 3 Hearts. LHO competes to 3 Spades which prompts RHO to bid 4, and I double. Partner pulls this to 5 Hearts. This was an excellent call as he held:
52
Q1062
106543
32
A spade is led, and for good measure I wait until trick 3 to claim 11 tricks. What makes my partner's 5 Hearts bid even better is that 4 Spades Doubled will make (unless I find a small heart lead from AKJ8743, which I won't). At the other table, Loraine and my young padouin allowed our team-mates to play in 4 Spades, for +16IMPs.
When I say "tough match", I suspect our opponents found it somewhat tougher. Partner and I had few decisions to make, but when we did, we got them right (with one exception), allowing Sandra and her partner for the evening no leeway. Our team-mates, it transpired, had a string of good results, finding any Game going and a Slam as well. In the end we earned 20VPs with plenty IMPs to spare. The only "miss" was this:
AQ1084
8
K103
10985
3
KJ9652
AQ84
AJ
All Vul
Contract: 3NT
West was Dealer and passed. With the North hand, I opened 2 Spades, showing 5-10 points, at least 5 spades, and at least 4 in any other suit. Partner enquired about my second suit with 2NT, followed by 3 Hearts, which is an interesting call. When asked about it, my jovial reply was: "I hope it's hearts!". I then further explained that logically, it looked to me like he was giving me a long suit to see if 3NT was viable. These explanations were after I had bid 3NT, which ended the auction. It makes sense for partner to bid 3 Hearts here, as I could be 5=3=4=1, but since I was 5=1=4=3, with promising filling in the minors, I bid 3NT.
The two of clubs is led to the 5, King and Ace. Partner's next play is Jack of Clubs, which West ducks. Partner then finesses the Queen of Spades, which holds, and plays a heart off table to the King, which also holds. That's an excellent guess which in the fullness of time earned 9 tricks. Dealmaster says 6 Diamonds is on, but I reckon if we bid Slam on hands like that, we'll be coming down an awful lot. As it was, +600 converted to +10IMPs.
The other match was against Abigail Wilson's team. This is something that both teams would have seen as a "Knockout" match, in as much as the losing side could virtually give up on the title. Unfortunately for our opponents, they had to field a weakened side. My RHO has only been learning the game for 4 weeks, so was really up against it. Put yourself in his shoes.
You hold:
KQ8
984
AJ864
A6
Starting with RHO, the uncontested auction is: 1H-1NT-2S-3NT
Partner leads the 4 of clubs, and dummy is:
A542
AKQJ32
10
105
Declarer plays the 5 from Dummy and you rise with your Ace, drawing the 3 from Declarer. How do you defend and what card do you play next?
It's tempting to return a club and that probably will work, but will likely result in Declarer only coming 1 off instead of 2. Instead, he switches to the King of Spades, which sets up two spade tricks in addition to partner's KQ of clubs and the Ace of diamonds. How many experienced players would find this defence?
I was feeling pretty cheesed off with myself at that point in the match, having missed a chance to defeat a cold Game on the previous board, but as the net result from the two was -1 IMP, I'll chalk it up to "could have been worse".
My LHO had a job to do here:
872
KJ7
9876
K63
He's on lead against 3NT after his RHO opens 1NT (12-14), and the bidding proceeds, without interference: 2C (NP Stayman) - 2 Hearts - 3NT.
What should he lead?
My sympathies are entirely with my opponent here. We bid a thin Game and got away with it. I agree with his choice of lead and would most likely have done the same, but on this occasion it allowed the contract to make.
Our team-mates came back with what they were sure was a losing card, and we had to settle for a 19-IMP win.
If we were in contention beforehand, we're still in contention now. 35.06VPs from 40 is not a bad evening's work. I write this before the scores at the doors are published, but my hope is that we have at least closed the gap on Bill Ross. The Norman McLeod, Maureen Mowat and Sandy Duncan teams all played each other, all winning one and losing one, so a quick glance at the Half-Way scores tells me we can be doing no worse than 2nd place at the moment. If the leaders had a bad night (which I doubt), we might even be leading. Hopefully I will
