Match vs. Hamilton

Things continue to be tight at the bottom of the first division in the West District. With three teams fighting it out to stay up, our match against Hamilton (one of the three) was likely to prove crucial. There were two slam deals in the first half, and 3 slams were bid between the 4 tables, so I think we only have ourselves to blame that we lost the match 10-6. 

First slam deal - this is what Norman thought his hand was during the auction:

Now, I don't really like the jump to 3NT. In fact, I think it's terrible. However, I think Norman can still recover. After I pull 3NT to 4S, he knows I've got at least 12 cards outside diamonds, and I've reversed (notice that I've reversed on a 14 count, and we still manage to miss it) - it's just possible that I have too much wastage in hearts for 6C to be a good spot, but it seems unlikely - I definitely prefer a 6C bid to 5C on this auction. Not quite sure what the recommended auction is on these two hands.

This is what the hands actually were, with the start of a recommended auction (I expect the majority of people will agree that the North hand is an opening bid when it has a 5th spade). 

I think probably a 4D splinter from South is the next bid, but we're going to struggle to get to grand. However, I think we should definitely bid the small slam. Only one of the four North South pairs in the match managed to bid that one, and no-one went anywhere near the grand.

Here's the second, where fully 2 out of 4 managed to make it to slam. I'm still not sure about the correct opening bid with the South hand:

I decided not to open 2C, on the general principle that opening 2 clubs with a two suiter always makes life difficult. However, I think this might be one occasion where this isn't quite right - I will almost always get a chance to rebid 3S to show the spade suit, and it's quite easy to visualise the hand being passed out when I'm cold for slam (give partner xxxx xx Axxx xxx, and I'd definitely want to be in 6S, but it's fairly likely that neither opponent has a bid over 1H).

There was another board where we slipped to let through a game that we should have beaten (as did everyone else), and our opponents did the majority of things right in the second half, and we lost the match by about 1400 points, which is 10-6. As I said, things are now incredibly close at the bottom, and we'll have to get significant points out of our last two matches if we're going to stay up.