Winter Pairs 3

The Winter Pairs is the Buchanan club's main pairs competition, the best 4 scores out of 8 collected from September to April count towards your final score. Last year, me and Norman finished third overall. This year, we started off badly with a below-average round, but have now followed it up with two scores in excess of 60%. We'll need a couple of really big scores to be in with a chance of winning, but it's a good start. 

Here's one where I made a different decision to literally everyone else in the room who was faced with the same problem (although I don't know how many people that was). 

Playing matchpoints, what's your call? I thought it was a pretty easy pass... I only have 2 cards in each major, I have a bare 12 points. Partner hasn't opened either a weak 2 in a major or a Lucas 2, so I thought it was long odds on that the opponents had a major suit fit, and are going out outbid us if I come into the auction. I just don't think it's odds on that I go positive if I open this hand, which is surely the only consideration when opening 4th seat playing matchpoints. 

As you can see from the traveller (slightly rotated from above - I was actually East), no-one else was both put into the same position as me and made the same decision. I can only assume that a number of people opened in third seat and that some were playing a weak NT, and decided to open my cards 1N, but I'm sure at least a few people must have been in my position, and decided to go ahead and open anyway. To be fair, I don't think I would have gone down in 2♣, so if I was destined to buy the contract there, then I was not correct to pass. 

I posted the hand on Bridge Winners, and as I write this it's exactly split down the middle between 1♣ and pass, so clearly pass isn't quite as clear cut as I thought, but it worked out well for us this time. 

We had a few unlucky boards towards the beginning, made a few mistakes in the middle, and were given a few gifts at the end, all adding up to 61.51%, which is a decent score, but almost certainly won't be one of our top 4 scores if we do go on to win the competition. 

Next week, East District League match - I'm playing with Adam, so we can get a bit of practice before National League, and the Chris Harrison Pivot Teams, where each member of the team plays 8 boards with each other member of the team. Norman and I are playing with Maria Jackson and John Di Mambro, and we're hoping we can finally win a Buchanan club competition - last season we finished either second or third in every single one...