I am playing this season of the Scottish Online League with Danny Hamilton - Phil Morrison has decided to take a break from Scottish bridge for a while. 

Danny and I are playing the system I used to play with Phil, so it's relatively straightforward - strong NT, short club, unbalanced diamond (mostly). But it's not what Danny's used to playing, and we also just haven't played a lot together (at least not since 2007), so we have different intuitions about what auctions mean. 

So far it's been a bit of a mixed bag, we've won one, lost one, and (nearly) drawn one - we actually lost by 1 IMP after an incorrect claim was corrected. 

Danny has written up a few hands from each of the matches on his blog. I thought the one above was interesting in defence. Declarer can always make it if they just draw trump, but we started with a heart to the J and a club to the K and A, and Danny played another H.

When I wont the SA, the only hope was for Danny to be able to get a trump promotion, and to give me a heart ruff, so we make 3 trumps, 2 clubs and a diamond. Having figured this out, I cashed the CQ and then played a C hoping Danny could overruff it (or declarer could get it wrong).

At the table this worked, but declarer can actually make on this defence, if he pitches the HK on the third round of clubs. In order to beat it legitimately, I have to underlead the DA to partner's Jack. I did think about doing this at one point, but didn't manage to put the whole plan together in my head. I think underleading the DA probably is correct at total points - especially if I think Danny's second heart had suit preference implications. 

A successful national league (or who needs to make grand slams anyway)

This weekend was the conclusion of the Scottish National League, with a fairly successful first weekend (we were second, which felt disappointing after being in comfortable first place after the first day, but was definitely more than we expected going in), we were in with a chance of winning. 

The way they schedule the second weekend of the National League, the top teams from the first weekend tend to play against the teams that finished lower down in the first weekend on the Saturday, and play each other on the Sunday, so we were hoping for some big wins on the first day. We didn't quite get them, but did well enough with three wins, one loss and a draw to have a chance if we did well on day 2. 

We started off with a good win against the team of Frazer, Phil, Mike Ash and Arend, who had Malcolm Culbertson subbing as Mike couldn't be there on the Sunday. We then narrowly beat Sime and went into the penultimate match some 18 VPs behind the leaders. We had a fairly good win against Jim Hay's team in that match, and with Sime beating the first place team, we went into the head-to-head needed to win by 7 IMPs to win the league. 

The last match was not exactly tight, with 85 IMPs swinging over 12 boards (including one which was flat in 4H making where the defence has 4 cashing tricks), but Phil and I let through a doubled slam with an overtrick on the first board, after I had tried to double for a lead, and it wasn't really possible to catch up from there. When the merry-go-round stopped, we had lost that match by 45-40 and the team of Derek Sanders, Alex Adamson, Danny Kane and Irving Gordon were relatively comfortable winners of the whole event, and the automatic picks for the Camrose team in the first weekend in January. 

Phil and I, however, had done enough over the two weekends to be clear at the top of the Butler, and that coupled with being in the second placed team in the event, was enough for us to be picked as the third pair, so I will be playing for Scotland in January! 

I have to be honest I wasn't expecting this going into the first weekend, where our aim was literally 'let's try not to get relegated', but I'm very happy to be selected, and Phil and I will be putting in a bit more practice between now and then when we can. 

Couple of hands below from the second weekend: 

Partner leads the ♥4, declarer wins with the ♥A, dropping the ♥6, and crosses to hand with the ♦A, cashes the ♦K pitching a ♠, and runs the ♣T to your K. Partner playing the 4 and 9 of ♦ and the ♣6 (standard count). What do you return? 

♥♦♠♣

Partner could have led from ♥KT543, in which case you want to return a ♥ now, or declarer could be concealing the ♥K, and partner could have the ♠Q. I don't think it's actually possible to know on this line of play. This certainly seems like the line of play declarer would take with with ♠Qxx ♥Jxx♦AKJx ♣ T9x, hoping to make his 9 tricks before you get the ♥s going against him (although that's maybe not quite an opening bid - he could still have the ♦Q as well, I guess). I think it's probably right to cash a top ♠ first, as this only costs when parter has exactly ♠Qx, and not the ♥K. On the actual deal, you go off if you try that: 

I think this is actually a really interesting play hand. At our table, Douglas actually won the ♥ lead in hand with the K and then ran the T♣ immediately, I guess hoping that either spades were 3-3 or that it would be hard to find a switch. After this start, I think the only defence from my side with any realistic chance of beating the contract is to play partner for the ♠Q, and return a low ♠ (catering for the case where he has Qx). We got this right, and that board was flat when Iain Sime also got it right on almost the line of play I gave above (Paul actually only cashed one round of ♦s, which as we decided over lunch probably shows the defence that he has another entry to his hand (otherwise he just doesn't have 9 tricks), and we're not sure if John and Iain were playing some sort of Smith peters). 

I think the optimal line of play is probably the one I gave above, hoping to represent something like ♠Kxx ♥Jxx ♦AKJx ♣ Txx, where your only realistic chance it to run home with 9 tricks before the defence takes their heart tricks, but it's not clear - e..g, if the defence plays Smith Peters, then this might just give South a chance to clear things up.

One of our less successful boards was against the Short team on the Saturday. After a good auction, I played in 7NT on the hands below:

I got a ♦ lead round to my hand, and now despite the ♥ break, you should always make 7NT. Just take a ♣ finesse, cash your ♦s , and the double squeeze is automatic - W has to keep Q♣, and E has to keep a ♥, so neither can keep three ♠s when you come down to ♠ATx opposite ♠Kx ♥8 (dummy pitches the ♣T after West's last discard). Unfortunately I didn't do this. I refused the ♣ finesses for no good reason, and basically played for a layout where Sam on my right hand only 12 cards... 

In the pub on Saturday, people were pretty sure 7N should also make on a ♠ lead, but I'm still not quite convinced (assuming that E manages to play the 8 on the first round...). The consensus was that you can squeeze West out of his ♦ winner and then when you play the 4th diamond force a ♠ discard which opens up his partner to a ♠♥ squeeze, but I just don't think there are enough tricks for the squeeze to function - West can afford to discard one card in each suit, and East can afford to discard two ♠s, and that's all the discards they have to make on the tricks you actually have. Obviously you can make it by running the ♦T on the first round of ♦s, but I think this is probably a bit unrealistic.

Here's another board where I failed to squeeze the opponents, but at least this time I did my best (from the last match against Derek and Alex):

I played this in 5♦X, after west opened and the opposition had bit to 4♠. Note that you are always making if the ♣s split 3-2, but unfortunately there's no way of setting up the ♣s for a ♥ pitch without letting W make his small ♦. Alex defended accurately, winning both ♦s, and playing a third ♦ immediately to kill the entry to dummy. When the clubs don't break, it looks like you now need the ♥ finesse, but this is one of those situations where you don't need to take the finesse, because if it's right, E is squeezed when you run the ♦s. I did manage to spot this at the table, and cash the ♥A before running all the trumps, but unfortunately (and not unexpectedly) it wasn't to be this time, and I had to lose a trick at the end to go 1 off (still a good save against 4♠). 

Melville Congress - when to finesse

I played in the Melville Congress Pairs with Martin Stephens a couple of weeks ago. Our result is probably something we'd both rather forget, but there were a couple of interesting boards. Here's one: 

You play in 4♥. The lead is the ♦9 the AK♦ are cashed and then the third round is ruffed. A small ♠ exit goes to the T♠ and Q♠ which you win. What do you do now? 

This is the sort of hand that everyone would get right if it were in a chapter on 'counting the defenders points' in a book', but is much harder to actually get right at the table. So far North has shown the AK♦ and the Q♠, and passed in third seat. Unless she's playing a very deep game, the ♥ finesse can't possibly be right, and you should play the ♥A now, hoping S started with Kx in ♥. You drop her now singleton K, and (as the saying goes) she holds her cards closer to her chest for the next board. This particular hand is one of those occasions where this play would have been rewarded.

 A look at the traveller shows that 11 people played in ♥ with a ♦ lead, and only 3 of them made 10 tricks, so it's obviously harder in practice than it is on paper... 

Here's the next one, where we found our way to slam.

Here's the second one. I won't give you the auction (suffice it to say that there were too many rounds, and that we were in both 6♣ and 6♠ before settling in 6NT by East), but I think North had the opportunity to double ♦ for a lead at some point, and South obliged. This is unfortunate, as 6NT is a pretty easy make on any other lead, with 4♠'s, 2♥'s, 1♦ and 5♣'s. However, as you can see if you look closely at the picture above, it's also makeable on this lead, at least in theory... 

How, exactly? Well, North had the guard in both red suits, so it looks like you might be able to squeeze her. However, if you try that, you'll find that a simple squeeze doesn't work, because West's black suits are both longer than East's, and the only entry in a threat suit is in the West hand, so you can't arrange to play the squeeze card from the right hand. However, if you manufacture this ending: 

North is squeezed on the play of the last ♠. If she keeps KT♥, you can throw her in with the ♦, and if she comes down to bare K♥, you can drop it, you just need to read the ending right to know which to do. (North has the option to bare the K♥ early, to make your guess tough, and even to ditch the K♦ playing her partner for the T, but the latter seems really unlikely to work, as in that case you've given up the ♥ finesse for effectively no compensation)

Of course, in practice this is not something you can do at the table, since you need to decide not to take the ♥ finesse in order to embark on this plan. If you manage to pull of this strip squeeze, relying on North holding all of 3 specific cards in favour of a straightforward finesse in ♥s, then I think she really does have a case for wondering whether you're peeking!

Three No Trump vs Broomlands

I played the hand below in 3NT in an aggregate teams match, West led the jack of hearts, East playing the 7. What's you plan (and which ♥ did you use to win trick one, assuming you won it?)

I won and ran the ♠Q, which was covered on my left. My plan now was to cash all the ♠ and ♥ winners, and exit with a ♥, making whenever the spades are 4-3 and either the diamonds are 3-3 or the diamond honours are in different hands (and in the unlikely case that the ♥s are 3-3), and also in some edge cases where the defence don't have the entries to cash their tricks. 

When I gave the hand to Phil Stephens, his first plan was to immediately play a ♦ to the 10, (or I guess a ♦ to the 9) although he's since discussed it with a few people, and come round to taking the ♠ finesse, I think because it's hard to see a route to 9 tricks if you can't make 3 tricks in ♠s. 

One interesting point he brought up was that one of the dangers with taking the ♠ finesse is that against good defence, you still don't know how many ♠ tricks you've got when the Q holds. On this particular hand, I don't think that matters, but it's not something that had immediately occurred to me.

Jackie Josephson

We had a match in the 'JJ' (Jackie Josephson) cup last night. This is a handicap competition, where teams from the lower divisions get a head start of 2000 points per division, and we were playing against Gilmorehill, who are definitely a first division team (with at least 5 recent Scottish internationals playing). 

The hand below caused a few rules discussions at half time, although in the end it didn't really matter too much, as we lost comfortably. 

2♣ was Drury, but it was not alerted. Here is where the first question comes up. I'm pretty certain that Norman would never bid 2NT in response to Drury. Obviously the bid should have some meaning, but Norman has a very strong preference for always playing an 8 card major fit once one is identified, and I just couldn't figure out what 2NT could possibly mean. My bid of 3♥ was sort of a hedge against the possibility that it shows a weak NT, but in practice I knew what was going on (and I'm pretty sure I would have known what was going on even if I was behind a screen) - am I ethically obliged to hang myself by bidding 4♥? Especially when I'm not even sure 4♥ would be the correct bid over whatever 2NT does mean. 

However, that's not the only issue. Looking at Jim's hand (South), he has a pretty safe double of 2♣ for a lead if it is alerted. Absent this information, John led a ♠  which gives away the spade suit, and Norman made 3♥. With the double, you'd have to get the spade right to make 9 tricks in ♥s. However, there isn't really any scenario where Norman gives Jim the information he needs to double, and we still end up bidding to 3♥, so it seem harsh to rule whatever fraction of 3♥-1 you would deem appropriate. Charles suggested a fair ruling would be 2♥ making, which I would definitely have accepted, but in the end, we decided to scrap the board entirely (as another table had been unable to play it due to overhearing the result) so it was all moot.

I'm genuinely not sure what the ruling should have been for either of these things, but I'm glad the match didn't finish with a 10 point gap :)

Matchpoint Wednesday (unfortunately)

I played with Norman in the Matchpoint Wednesday tournament at the Buchanan this week. It's not part of the Winter Pairs, as we're about as far from winter as you can get, but it's still a club-wide matchpoints competition. 

 We finished third, with a score of about 62%, beaten comfortably by John Di Mambro and Douglas Mitchell, on 65%. Our card would have been much better at aggregate, as we had an 1100 penalty on a board where most pairs failed to bid game, and bid two making vulnerable slams, but that's not how you win at matchpoints... 

 I had a chance to make up most of the difference on this board: 

NS played in 3♠, as you might expect, and Norman led the ♥8. Declarer won in hand immediately set about drawing trumps, with a ♠ to the J, and I returned the ♦Q. I actually thought about my return for a few seconds, knowing that I wanted to somehow let Norman know that I could ruff a ♣, but eventually concluding it was too dangerous to return a low ♦, in case declarer had KTx (which was the case). However, what didn't occur to me until too late is that I can return the ♦J. If this is allowed to hold, I play the ♦2 next, and hopefully Norman can figure out something strange is going on in ♦s, and find the ♣ ruff now. It's maybe not quite so clear if declarer does cover the jack, but I think it gives the best chance. 

 Here's the board where we bid a slam that only three other pairs managed to get to: 

Norman opened 1♣ and rebid 2NT over my 1♠ response. At this point, I pretty much just bid 6♣ - I know we have a 9 card fit (we only open 1♣ with 2 if we're exactly 4432, so he would have supported spades if he didn't have 3♣s), and it's hard to imagine a 19 point hand that doesn't have pretty good play (or how I'm going to find out when Norman has such a hand). In practice, I messed around bidding checkback, and then realised that we play 4♣ over 3♥ as a cue agreeing ♥s, so blasted 6♣. I think I could have bid 4♣ over 2NT as some sort of slam try, but I don't think I was going to stop, so I should probably have just jumped to the small slam immediately.

Counting Bridge Auctions

I wrote a bridge-related thing which I posted on my main website, as it's mostly maths-related, but it might be of interest to people who read this blog and don't know about that one (ie, Danny), so I'm linking to it here. 

http://www.johnfaben.com/blog/counting-bridge-auctions

Bridge in Canada

I'm in Prince Edward Island (or "the island", as the folks around here refer to it) to visit Jessica's mum for Christmas. We had the extended family for the couple of days either side - a total of 14 people, with the requisite amount of seafood chowder, quiche and roast turkey. All quite an undertaking. 

On the day we arrived, I had a quick check to see if there were any nearby bridge clubs, and discovered that there was a game with a guaranteed partner at the extremely nearby Haviland club - just a few minutes walk through the snow, and right next to the sea. 

Everyone was very welcoming, and inquired what I was doing on the island. I had a nice game with Ray Malone, who sometimes does some teaching at the club as well, and we tried out a fairly basic 2/1 system. 

Looking at the website, we appear to have finished third, with 58%. As far as I can tell, that is comparing East/West percentages with North/South percentages and I don't remember there being an arrow switch, but as Paul pointed out when I visited Chennai, third is probably an appropriate place to finish as a first-time visitor. The results are here: http://clubresults.acbl.org/Results/270256/2016/12/161219A.HTM 

We would have finished in a comfortable first place had I not forgotten to duck the second spade on the board below. For some reason I became convinced the suit was 4-4 when North returned the 2, but failed to take into account that if they were 4-4, I could afford to duck a second round.... 

The next board where I failed to make a game was a little more interesting, although looking at it again, I think I just overthought things, and it should be fairly simple. 

How do you play 4 spades as East after the defence take the first two tricks with a heart to the Ace and a ruff, and play a club?

The correct line, I think, is to simply cross to the ace of diamonds and take a spade finesse. I was concerned that by doing this I would cut myself off from the heart winner in dummy, so I played a low spade immediately, successfully managing to find the only way to fail on the actual layout, which was Kx with North. If the spade finesse loses, you're still ok as long as South doesn't have another spade to return, as now you can unblock the hearts and draw the last trump by crossing to dummy. If the spade finesse wins, of course, you don't need the second heart winner. 

Anyway, it was a fun afternoon, and a very picturesque setting: 

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year from Canada!

Winter Pairs 1

It's September again, and that means the club's premier pairs competition, the Winter Pairs, has started. Norman and I got off to an enormous start, with a score of 68.3%. John Di Mambro and Douglas Mitchell got an almost-as-enormous 66.23% to finish in second place, so the race is well and truly on. The format is that your top 4 scores out of 7 evenings count, so another couple of really big scores will be necessary if we want to win, but we've certainly given ourselves the best chance. 

We only got a below average score on 4 boards out of 24. Here's one of them: 

I played in 3NT. I won the first heart trick, hoping the suit might be blocked (it is), and ran the club queen. When this won, I could see 10 tricks for the taking. I cashed everything before taking a diamond finesse - confident that South would not have bared the diamond K, and was held to 10 when it lost. I'm not quite sure how three people managed to make 11 tricks even after getting a heart lead - maybe winning the lead and taking a diamond finesse immediately? Perhaps it's tough for South to cash two hearts on that line when they can see that that sets up a heart trick for declarer. 

Buchanan Congress Pairs, plus more

This month was the Buchanan Congress. I've had some success in the Congress over the past few years, winning the Pairs with Norman in 2014, and finishing second in both the pairs and (I think) the men's teams last year. This year was not so good. 

I played in the pairs with Danny. He has a good account of it here. He charitably missed out the hand below: 

I played in 3NT as West (I don't quite recall the auction, but I suspect I responded 1NT to Danny's 1♥ opening, and then accepted his invite). 

North led the ♠6, and I won this on the table, and counted 11 tricks, 4♦s, 5♣s and 2♠s. For some reason, I had completely neglected the existence of the ♦K... 

I cashed the ♠K and the ♣A, and then claimed, stating that I would make 4♦s and 5♣s. South correctly pointed out that, erm, no, I didn't actually have 4♦s, and we immediately called the director. Given that I'd set up the defences' ♠ suit for them, and that they had the top three ♥s to cash, we put the score in as down 3, and got on with the next board as the director went away to make a ruling. 

I'm not quite sure what happened in the end, but the director spoke to us after the session, and told us she was planning to rule the contract to 3NT making! Looking at all 4 hands, I think this is (astoundingly) probably correct. There's just no way for the defence to get more than 4 tricks, both the major suits are blocked, and the ♦T is dropping on the first round, so there's no way to get that suit wrong.

I absolutely agree that when a declarer has made a claim as ridiculous as this, you should be as harsh as possible in determining what a "reasonable" line of play is. but as long as I pitch a ♥ and not a minor suit winner when South cashes his (only) ♠ trick, the contract is there for the taking. 

I haven't actually checked what happened with the ruling - according to the results it's still down 3, so maybe the opposition objected to this ruling - given that it would take us from joint 5th up to 4th place in the consolation final, I wasn't inclined to argue. 

♠♥♦♣

This Wednesday it was a standard aggregate night at the Buchanan, and I played with Norman as usual. We finished third East/West, with John Donaldson and Jimmy Jordan winning. This was probably the most interesting hand of the night:

Norman opened the West hand 2♣, and after I showed a double negative, we were able to settle in 4♥, for an excellent score. I think both the play and the bidding are interesting. First, do you open the West hand 2♣? I'm generally convinced by the argument that with a 2 suiter you just open one of the suits, but I think this hand is just too strong. Here's a hand where you're a big favourite to make game:

♠xxxx ♥xx ♦xxx ♣xxxx

And here's another where slam is nearly laydown:

♠xx ♥QJxxx ♦xxx ♣xxx

Is partner supposed to bid with either of these hands? Given that in both cases you have a fairly big major suit fit, can you rely on the opponents to come back in on either of these hands? I think the answer to both is no, and I'm happy with Norman's decision here.

Now, assuming you've navigated the bidding and are playing in 4♥, what's your plan? You can be pretty confident of 5 tricks outside of ♥s, which leaves you needing 5 tricks in ♥s. How do you go about getting them? On the lead of the ♦2, I was optimistic of cashing 4♦ tricks, but when N ruffed the fourth with the ♥9, that was also good enough for me - as the trumps are now 2-2 I can now basically just draw trumps while ruffing two spades in dummy. I suspect after three rounds of ♦s stood up I should have started cross ruffing things immediately, but it all worked out.

Next weekend is the YCBA congress in Harrogate. I'm playing with Martin Stephens, Frazer Morgan and Peter Stephens (over the course of the three days). Phi Morrison is also there, and has helpfully organised all our accommodation, but isn't actually playing in any of our teams. On that note - congratulations to Phil, Frazer, Phil and Alex for winning the right to represent Scotland in the Chairman's Cup in Sweden.

The second best hand I've ever held

Haven't posted anything in a while. 

In the meantime, I won a silver prize at the National Men's teams (playing with Jun, Adam and Paul - slightly awkward winning a silver prize with two recent Camrose players in our team, but these things happen). I won a silver prize playing with Jun at the Melville Congress. Finished second in the club's pairs championship (congratulations to Christine and Ian, who led it from the start), and Hillhead have managed, for the first time (I'm told) to retain our place in the first division of the West District League. Unfortunately, Merchiston didn't quite manage to do the same, and we were relegated in the East District League. 

Despite all that bridge, the hand I'm going to post is one I was dealt playing casual bridge at Martin Stephen's house last week. I was dealt the South hand below, and Becky opened 1 heart on my right... what's your plan? 

National League weekend 2

The second weekend of the National League was this weekend. Full results are available here. Congratulations to the team of Mike Ash, Alex Adamson, Finlay Marshall, Arend Bayer and Patrick Home, who won the division. They went in as favourites (and in fact would only narrowly have missed out on automatically being in the first division), and won out in the end. Congratulations also to the Burn team, who will get to play in the First Division next season. Also well done to Brian Short, Alan Goodman, Sam Punch and Stephen Peterkin, who won the first division with over a match to spare (Derek Saunders also played in that team, but I think he only played the Saturday of the second weekend, so hadn't played enough boards to qualify for the Camrose). Phil S and Frazer will be the third pair in the Camrose team for the first weekend, with Alex and Phil M as their reserves.

We did a lot better in the second weekend than we did in the first, but had left ourselves with just too much to do to catch the teams in front. Even beating the Burn team 15-5 on Saturday didn't do enough to close the gap when we narrowly lost a couple of matches in the afternoon. We had the best score in the second weekend, narrowly ahead of Ferguson and Adamson. Here's a full table with scores from both weekends (since the version on the national league website requires you to do some arithmetic). 

Captain	First Weekend Score	Second Weekend Score	Total Score
ADAMSON	87.7	78.08	165.78
BURN	90.1	70.48	160.58
FABEN	64.22	85.44	149.66
SHENKIN	74.69	67.45	142.14
FERGUSON	56.41	81.37	137.78
CLOW	53.25	69.69	122.94
GUTHRIE	53.43	67.13	120.56
WICKENS	81.83	36.73	118.56

♣♦♥♠

The most exciting hand of the weekend was the very first board of the very first set (although we didn't play it first):

Adam opened the North hand 1S. By agreement we open most 7 loser 8 counts, and he has a 5 loser 7 count, so this isn't horribly off system (he does have ways of showing a longer minor in most auctions). East decided not to bid, and after a bit of thought, I bid 3NT. I wasn't sure whether we had any explicit agreement about 3NT, but it pretty much has to show this sort of hand. Adam asked me what my minor was with 4C, and when he jumped to 6, I figured that AKQJ9754 was almost certainly a better trump suit than whatever he had in mind, and corrected. East wasn't kind enough ot make a Lightner double, so I rolled in an easy 940. Note that you can make 7 of either minor, but only if you arrange to play it from the short hand to avoid the ruff. 

The auction went slightly differently at the other table: 

Having right-sided the contract, there was no lead that could avoid a couple of overtricks in this contract, and we chalked up 18 IMPs for 940+850... Note that 13 tricks in hearts are cold if played by East, but West can only make 12. 

We spent a few minutes in the pub wondering if you could construct a hand where each player can make exactly one grand slam, before realising that we pretty much had a template for one here - swap a few of North's spades with a few of East's diamonds, and West is cold for 13 tricks in spades, whereas East can only make 12. Each player can make exactly one grand slam. 

♣♦♥♠

I've enjoyed playing the National League this year, and will definitely be looking to enter again next season. Whether Adam and I will stick with the strong diamond, or find anyone who's willing to play in a team with us if we do is yet to be seen...

The organisers currently have a consultation going on to come up with suggestions for the format. While obviously I have a selfish interest in keeping the second/third divisions as they were at the end of this season, I'm not convinced I'd bother entering if I knew I had to play in the third division for both weekends, so I think there's probably a good argument for keeping the format the same as it was this year. It also seems fairer to people who didn't enter this year for whatever reason, or want to rearrange their teams. Given that the league is essentially an international trial, I think that for it to take a full 2 years before you can even get into a position to be eligible for international selection is probably a bit much.

It did feel slightly unfair that the shorter matches in the first weekend counted the same as the longer matches in the second weekend, but at least in the second division they weren't that much shorter (and we still wouldn't have made it into second place even if you scaled up the second weekend scores by a factor of 16/11), so overall I think the format worked, I just wish we'd managed to play a bit better in the first weekend, so we could at least have kept it interesting.

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... 

National League Weekend 1

We played the first weekend of the National League this weekend. With the Second Division splitting to form Second and Third Divisions after the first weekend, our first goal was to avoid qualifying for the third division. With a couple of matches to go, it was looking close, and then we lost heavily to the Burn team in our penultimate match, and didn't think we were in with much of a chance. Luckily, a few of the other teams who were on the verge of qualifying also lost, and a big win in our last match was enough to see us sneak through in 7th place (8 teams in the 2nd division). You can find the full table here. 

Rank	Name	Score	Carryover
1	ADAMSON	184.17	87.70
2	WICKENS	172.96	81.83
3	SHENKIN	157.85	74.69
4	BURN	147.33	90.10
5	GUTHRIE	140.18	49.80
6	CLOW	137.05	53.25
7	FABEN	127.37	64.22
8	FERGUSON	119.30	56.41

We do actually move up a bit when you remove the games against the lower six teams, with a somewhat more creditable 6th place, but we're still a good way behind the three teams at the top. We did manage to beat both Wickens and Adamson in the first round, but it will have to be a pretty spectacular set of scores next weekend if we're going to overcome that sort of difference. Ian Burn's team is the biggest winner from discarding the matches against the bottom six, gaining a full 40 VPs when compared to Adamson, and actually starting the second weekend at the top of the division, despite only finishing 4th overall.

The reason we didn't do better is mostly because we didn't play well enough. There were, as there always are, several chances that we could have taken which would have seen us win the matches we lost. We managed an impressive 20 IMP swing out on one board (both 6CX and 4HX+2 making against us...). Our team mates had a similar sort of weekend, some ups and some downs. If you believe the Butler, we were pretty evenly matched - they were .19 IMPs a board better than us, just sneaking positive, whereas we were just negative.

Adam and I had a couple of system mix-ups, but most of our errors were just straight up errors, and could just as easily have been made if we had been playing Culbertson, instead of the strong diamond we (for some reason) have decided to adopt. 

Here's one where I think we were a bit unlucky:

Seeing both hands, you might not be overly excited to play in 6 clubs, but on the auction I (with the West cards) knew that Adam had exactly a 4-3-1-5 shape and 11-15 points... given that there were only 13 points missing outside of diamonds, I felt that 6 clubs was at worst going to be an even money chance, and just bid it. Adam played it quite nicely, winning the opening lead, ruffing two diamonds and playing off three rounds of hearts, hoping North would have to win and would be endplayed in spades. Unfortunately North had another club to return, and the slam was one off. South did have the spade 10, so the slam can make double dummy on the intrafinesse in spades, but that wasn't really a very realistic play, unless you're wiling to run all the clubs and back yourself to read the spade suit when South has to find two discards. 

We'll get a bit more practice in before the next weekend, and hopefully I'll be a bit sharper, as we'll be more definitely in the middle of bridge season. First goal, once again, will be to avoid qualifying for the third division next season...