On Monday 15th February Les’ Crowthorne ‘B’ team (Les, Norman, Simon, Dave) played their ninth match in this season’s BBL division 2. The match was their second meeting this season against the Ascot ‘D’ team who Les beat 11-9 in their first meeting. This time the result was a heavy defeat for Les’ team by 0-20 leaving Les with a 4-5 record and an overall 7.8VP average per match. Oh dear!!

Les finished a catastrophic first half with a 65imp (11-76) deficit. A better second half 12imp (33-45) loss resulted in an overall 77imp (44-121) or 0-20VP defeat.

There were 9 double figure swings, 8 to Ascot – an 83imp total swing in Ascot’s favour. Only 7 boards produced a 3imp swing or less - 5imp in Ascot’s favour. The 8 intermediate swings, 5 to Les, produced a 11imp swing to Les.

These are the double figure swing boards. Les got most of the leads for the first half but understandably then lost interest!


Board 1: Love all, dealer North. 10 imps to Ascot as Dave (East) made 4-5 (-250) on the A lead whilst Les (North) made 3N-4 (-200) on an unknown lead.

This deal set the tone of the match as Les went for a combined 9 down. This is excessive even by our standards! Dave cannot remember much about the hands, bidding or play which is just as well otherwise sleep my elude him for several months. He thinks he lost the first 5 tricks and things did not improve much from there. Who knows what the par contract on the board was?!!


Board 4: Game all, dealer West. 12 imps to Ascot as their North made 4 (-620) on an unknown lead whilst Simon (West) made 3N-1 (-100) on the 6 lead.

Dave held:-

Axx
Qxxx
Kx
xxxx

and the uncontested bidding started by Simon was 1 - 3 - 3N. After a considerable pause Dave passed thinking his hand looked good for one ruff at best. He has never had a clue in these auctions when to move to 4 or pass 3N. At the table little advice was forth-coming either though Simon suggested bidding the game as Dave’s raise was based on losers.

4 made in the other room but was it defeatable – perhaps on repeated trump leads? Simon, can you remember you hand?  


Board 5: N-S game, dealer North. 16 imps to Ascot as Dave (East) made 4-1 (-50) on the 5 lead whilst Les (North) made 3*-5 (-1400). Les talked the opposition out of their failing game but the price was rather high!!

    
Board 7: Game all, dealer South. 10 imps to Ascot as their South made 4+1 (-650) on the 2 lead whilst Norman (South) made 2+3 on the same lead.

Dave thinks this is the hand where he could cash 3 tricks on a lead but there was no way of defeating the game not reached by Les and Norman.


Board 12: N-S game, dealer West. 12 imps to Ascot as Simon (West) played in 3*-3 (-500) on the A lead whilst Norman (South) made 3N-1 (-100) on the K lead.

Dave and Simon were hopeful that their part score on slender values might show a profit with the expectation that 4 would make. Not sure if it would but 3N didn’t.


Board 13: Game all, dealer North. 10 imps to Ascot as their South made 5 (-650) on the 7 lead whilst Norman (South) made 2+3 on an unknown lead.

Again all on the bidding as game seems comfortable but Les and Norman did not manage to bid it.  


Board 18: N-S game, dealer East. 13 imps to Les as Ascot’s South made 4*-4 (+800) on the A lead whilst Ascot’s East made 3-1 (+50) on an unknown lead.

Dave cannot recall the bidding fully but remembers Simon making a take-out double and Dave jumped to 3. South’s 4 was doubled by Simon and passed out. Dave and Simon may well have ended in 4 which does not look like it is making. So they judged well in this auction to notch Les’ only double figure swing!


Board 20: Game all, dealer West. 14 imps to Ascot as their North made 6 (-1540) on the A lead whilst Les (North) made 4 (+620). Dave’s (East) hand was something like:-

xx
AKJxxxxx
xx
x

The bidding was (1) – 4 - (X) – 5 - 6. This contract was again undefeatable but not found by Norman and Les.      


Board 21: N-S game, dealer North. 12 imps to Ascot as Dave (East) made 6**-1 (-200) on the J lead whilst Ascot’s East made 4 (-420).

Simon’s and Dave’s hands were:-

109xx AQxx KJ Axx

KQxxx 9 Axx Kxxx

    
The bidding started by Dave was succinct 1 - (2) – 6(!). At first sight Simon’s jump to a slam might seem over the top on his 14 points and 7 loser hand. However, just about all the outstanding points are with South so any red suit finesses are likely to work and given the state of the match it might work out well. If Dave could make the contract it would have been worth a total swing of 26imp. The K and Q were placed as expected and allowed Dave to ditch one of his and one of Simon’s s.

So it all rested on the trump suit. The A was marked with South. A 2-2 break, a singleton J or a singleton A would all have afforded chances to bring in the contract. Sadly, though probably predictably from the double, South held AJx and 1 down was unavoidable!    

1. My recollection is that the auction was 1 - (4) - x - (Pass) - 4 - All Pass. The defence won the first 8 tricks before Dave rallied to win the remainder. In the other room I am guessing that Norman overcalled 3 making the final contract of 3NT by Les inevitable. I think we may defeat 4c - unless declarer drops the singleton king offside we make two club tricks plus at least two tricks outside.

4. I held a good 14 points and decided to upgrade to a strong notrump so opened 1 with something like S K10x H KJ10x D QJ8x C A9. Dave's clubs were headed by 108.

5. Les doesn't seem to take any notice of the vulnerability nor the quality of opponents when he pushes the bidding on marginal values - against poor opposition at MPs he sometimes gains a good result, vulnerable at IMPs  against players that are not afraid to double his actions are generally very costly.

12. I think 4 rated to make 1 or 2 overtricks given the distribution.

18. NS were only 3 off for -800.

Board 4 - 4 does not look easy against a trump or attack? However, if a is lead and North plays A it is thank you and goodnight. If he plays 10 or 9 then East can try 8 to set up 3 tricks?  On a lead East may be able to engineer 2 ruffs? It all looks a bit hairy.

Board 18 - Thanks Simon, Dave did not write down the number of tricks made and back-calculated from the score using the wrong vulnerability.

Ascot are to be congratulated for almost invariably (other than board 18 ) reaching the best contract whilst all too often Crowthorne did not.