Monday is the start of the Interstate Teams Championship. Tasmania is competing in the Open, Womens and Seniors.
The Open Team played three matches aagainst Victoria, ACT and NT. 1 win and 2 losses. Running 6th out of 8. Full results here.
The Womens Team had a bye in the first match, then had a 4 IMP loss to Queensland and a draw with ACT. Running 4th out of 7. Full results here.
The Seniors Team played three matches aagainst NSW, WA and ACT. 3 losses. Running 7th out of 7. Full results here.
Our first match was against Victoria. Tania and I played EW in the open room while Erica McCoull and Jeremy Reid made their debut for Tasmania in the closed room.
Board 1 saw some action at our table.
I further clarified that the first X had shown 4 spades and that 1S would have shown 5+ spades. I should have made the contract or even an overtrick. In retrospect I think I allowed my confusion as to the opponent's bidding to distract me and went down in a cold contract.
At the end of the hand it became clear that South thought that X showed 4+ spades and that 1S would have been artificial. The opponents were able to provide documentation that the explanation given by north was the systemic agreement.
Fairly strange that a pair playing at this level would not be clear about such a basic sequence. North's choice to pass 2HX seems brave given that a club fit must have seemed likely if partner only had 4 spades. Still a missed opportunity.
On Board 3 South passed and Tania opened a fairly normal 3S. North chose to pass and 3S was the contract. They took the obvious 6 tricks to beat the contract 2 tricks for 200. Looking at the results it seems that all other norths chose to double. South has an interesting decision if north doubles. Reasonable choices seem to be Pass, 3NT or 4C. With a deep trump trick and the AQ of hearts, Pass seems best. My second choice would be 3NT. 4C is probably a distant third. With a flat hand and 4 bad clubs this seems likely to go minus and if partner's hand is good enough to make 4C they will probably bid on.
Board 16 saw a gadget work poorly for our opponents. North opened 2NT strong. South bid 3S which asked partner to bid 3NT. Apparently a direct bid of 3NT would have shown some other ongoing type hand. Tania had KJTxx spade and the CA so doubled 3S for the lead. North could have tried 4H in his good 5 card suit but chose 3NT. The S lead through the Q meant that the contract was doomed. North tried the DA in case the K was singleton. When it wasn't this resulted in 2 down. A valuable 11 IMPs to us on the last board.
A 9 IMP loss. Not a great start but we were competitive.
Match 2 was against a strong team from the ACT. Tania and I played NS in the Open room with Julie Rhodes and Hilton Francis in the closed room.
Both of our pairs had a poor set and the result was not pretty!
Board 23 was our best result for the match. George played in 2H which he could have made, but went one down. Hilton and Julie passed the hand in. 3 IMPs.
Tania and I were pretty good on the part-score hands but had 3 terrible results on vulnerable game hands. Enough said.
Match 3 was against the NT. They are an improving team from a small bridge playing population. They can be dangerous but are a good opportunity for us to get back on the rails. I made my best captaincy decision of the event so far in sitting Tania and I out and letting the other four do the business.
There was a fair amount of action with 88 IMPs traded. +26 IMPs was a good way to finish the day. See the results here.
Board 13 was 'unlucky' for us. It's not clear to me why the 6-6 hand chose to defend 3SX. Also not clear how it made. Since 4H was making, one down doubled would not have been a great result. -730 was a bad result.
Tuesday will be the other 4 matches of the first round-robin. The open team will play WA, Queensland, NSW and SA.