The second last day of this year's ANC. Day 1 of Stage 3 of the Open Butler Pairs. Five 12 board matches today.
Match 1: Carmel Martin and Abby Wanigaratne. Apair from Queensland who are experienced but not well known at this level. Clearly they have played well and consistently to survive to this point.
Win by 15 IMPs. A fairly flat set of boards.
Match 2: Sophie Ashton and Liam Milne. One of the favourites to win the event. Undefeated in Stage 2.
You are in a slam missing an Ace and your trump suit is AKT5 opposite Q876. What is your plan? Obviously if the suit breaks 3-2 there is no problem. If they are 4-1 your best chance is to play the Ace then cross to the Q to pick up Jxxx in the hand under the AKT5. When you cash the A it goes 4 from the next hand and 9 from the fourth hand. Now it is probably right to cash the K catering for Jxxx under the Q.
Have a look at Board 17.
Slam looked pretty good. If clubs are 3-2 you can draw trumps and the third spade goes on the extra heart winner. I cashed the Ace and both hands played low. Now I could only pick up Jxxx in Sophie's hand so I played a trump to the Q and was disappointed when Liam showed out. I could pick up the trumps now but would need a lucky spade layout because of the blockage in diamonds. I drew all the trumps, cashed the top diamonds then led a spade towards the dummy. When the T forced te ace I had 12 tricks.
Sophie immediately apologised to Liam for failing to play the C9 on the first round of trumps. This is one of the so-called obligatory false cards. A low club leaves declarer with no choice. The 9 creates a losing option. You need to do this in good tempo if it is going to work!
Board 13 displayed a system agreement from Liam and Sophie. I opened 1S and Tania responded 2S. Liam bid 4C which showed a good hand with 5-5 in the red suits. Sophie's 5D ended the auction. We scored 2 diamond tricks for -600 and 10 IMPs away. Admittedly they could have got a similarly large score if Liam had doubled for takeout but this level of system agreement is what seperates the great pairs from the good.
Have a look at Board 24! This may be the best balanced hand that I have ever held in 45+ years of bridge. 30 HCP! I opened 2C, Tania responded 2H an artificial bid denying an A or K or 2 Queens. Not a real suprsie since I held all the aces and kings and one of the queens. Although my hand is great I have 4 losers to cover. Slam is not close to certain if partner really has nothing. I bid 4NT invitational. Tania bid 6H and I raised to 7. 5 hearts to the Q and 3 diamonds would make this a very good contract. With 6 small hearts Tania played the HA dreading seeing one of the opponents show out. Fortunately they both followed and we had 13 tricks. A curiosity on this hand was that two pairs played 7NT, we played 7H and the other two pairs played 6H. 7NT scores 1520, 7H scores 1510. The datum was 1350 so we scored 4 IMPs while the pairs in 7NT scored 5 IMPs. It's fairly rare for 10 difference to make an IMP difference. Still 7NT was the better contract.
Loss by 19 IMPs. Sophie and Liam played well. A couple of missed opportunities by both pairs.
Match 3: Kate MacCallum and Axel Johansson. A good pair and a chance for revenge for the loss in Stage 2.
Win by 14 IMPs. A good result for us.
Match 4: Phil Gue and Nigel Rosendorff. A good pair. Phil is an old partner of mine, they are teammates for George and I in an upcoming adventure in Darwin.
Loss by 5 IMPs. This felt a little unlucky.
Match 5: Adam Robinson and Jacques Cherbuin. Adam was replaced in this match by Lyn Carter due to ill health.
Win by 8 IMPs. A fairly flat set, opponents hampered a little by lack of partnership experience.
The scores at the end of day 1 are extremely close! We are running sixth but less than 4 VPs from first place. A tough day awaits us tomorrow, four matches against strong opponents who are running 1st, 2nd, 4th and 7th. Our destiny will very likely be in our own hands.
A short report tonight. We have played about 500 hands in the last 12 days. Fatigue is becoming a factor!