As is usually the way, a lot of our good scores were gifts from the opponents, and we had the opportunity to score much better, with two almost total zeros which were entirely our own fault... here's one where we did very well in defence.
Brian Senior's commentary for the event points out that 3NT will outscore 4S almost always, and so those pairs in 4S are likely to be headed for a bad score. The pair in 4S against us was in for a truly terrible score. I led a diamond. Norman won the Q and A, and switched to a club. I played a third diamond, and the uppercut was enough for 1 off, and 96% of the match points.
Great defence!
ReplyDeleteWhy did you begin with a Diamond, and how did Norman know to return a Club?
I led a diamond because... well, I'm not really sure. I was mostly hoping to be able to give Norman a ruff, but there's no particular reason to think that might be the case.
DeleteWhen Norman cashed the second diamond trick, I did follow suit with the 3, which I hoped Norman might take as suit preference. I never actually asked him if that was why he switched to a club rather than a heart (he was obviously looking for an entry to my hand).