Thursday at the GBC

Martin Stephens came over from Edinburgh on Thursday night (making good use of his paternity leave!) and we played at the GBC. There were a few interesting boards. 

I got a good score on the board below. How do you play 4♠ on the lead of the ♥J? No opposition bidding.

I think the only chance for 12 tricks is for ♥s to be 3-3 and the trumps 3-2, so I cashed two top trumps and played off the hearts for 12 tricks and a joint top - only one other East managed to make 12 tricks. According to the travellers, only 1 received the ♣ lead that legitimately holds this contract to 11, so I think I played this one well (although it's possible I'm missing something). 

We didn't bid optimally on the the hands below (although we still managed to take over 60% of the matchpoints). 

Our auction was 1♦ - 1♠ - 2♣ - 2♥(*) - 2♦ - 3♠ - 3NT AP. 

I'm not sure where I could have bid better. I suppose I could just bid 2NT over the FSF bid, but I'm not sure where we go from there. Maybe my normal bid is in fact 3♥, bidding out the shape - which then allows partner to know we've got a ♦ fit? I'm not really sure what's standard on this type of auction, which is probably worrying, as this is a pretty basic FSF auction. 

After the jump to 3♠, I thought about going on, but didn't think Martin's spades were likely to be as good as they are. Any suggestions for how you and your favourite partner would have bid these hands to 7♦ (or even the more reasonable 6♦) appreciated. 

I don't have an electronic record of board 30, but the heart position was something like this: 

	♥ 5
♥ AQJ76		♥ T93
	♥ K842

Angus led the ♥Q from the West hand against 3NT, and Martin had about 8 tricks, and so decided to hold up. Angus switched to a ♦ to get his partner in, and the ♥9 came back. Note that at this point if Martin covers this, the ♥s are blocked, and the opponents can cash no more than 3 ♥ tricks to go with their ♦s. Note that Gerry can't prevent this by unblocking at trick 1, as then the defence can once again only cash 3 ♥ tricks before they are stopped.

I wish I had the whole hand, as the decision of whether or not to hold up at trick 1 was actually quite an interesting one, but I probably won't even manage to get 13 cards in each hand if I try to make it up... 

We didn't have a great final score, a few unlucky boards, a couple of misunderstandings and several that were poorly played (a few each), but it was fun, and I nearly beat the taxi Martin got back to Q street station on my bike. 

League fixtures are in now, and I'm playing in the second division in the West District (which is a higher standard than it was last year, but I think our team should still be favourites), and will be making some appearances for Jake Corry's Merchiston team in the East District. In fact, with that and a few other events coming up, my calendar is rapidly filling up with bridge...