There were some interesting hands at the OBA mixed pairs yesterday.
Abingdon and Wallingford were well represented and the field was quite
strong. Jean Squires had the misfortune of putting up with me for the
afternoon - so lets see what happened!

First, a hand against Amit Badiani and Alex Fearnhead (who came 2nd) -

Board 1 (both non-vulnerable)

The Bidding-

Alex leads the A spades at trick one, followed by a spade to the Q, J (suit
preference for Hearts) and Jean's 10. Jean now got the diamonds wrong to
leave the boss Q outstanding and set about hearts. Once these were set up
she entered dummy to lead a club. Amit sleepily played low (he had a count
of the hand) and Jean's King won for +110 and nearly all the matchpoints.

Now for two disasters against John Clifford and Sara Tulip (who came 5th
-well done) -

Board 7 (game all)

The bidding -

I really must stop passing on near yarboroughs (maybe!!)

Jean led the 2 of spades, Sara won and played a heart. Jean ducked, won the
club return and cleared the spades. A club to the ace was followed by
another heart (ducked) followed by a club exit. two rounds of spades
follow and I am on lead! That 9 of diamonds is a nuisance in dummy, so I
have to play a low diamond to Sara's 3 and Jean's Queen. Jean has to
return a diamond for -180. (you had no need to apologise to Sara upon
tabling dummy John!)

The next showed superb judgement by Sara-

Board 8 (love all) -

The bidding-

This went for 500 and a 5% score for us. How does she do it?

Now for a defensive coup!

Board 13 (all vun)

The Bidding-

I lead the 2 of hearts as East and the Jack won. Declarer then led a heart
from Dummy and Jean discarded the 4 of spades (McKenney). I ducked and
Declarer now played the King of Diamonds. I grabbed this and played the
Queen of Clubs for +300 and all the matchpoints! There was some discussion
about opening 1N with a good 5-card major by the opposition following this
hand!

We had a nice defence on board 19 (E/W vulnerable) against Stephen Brown
and Lynne Hayes-

The bidding

Jean led the Q spades, followed by the Jack of Spades. I had played the 7
on the first and the 3 on the second. Jean now played the J of diamonds
(best!) to the Queen, King and Ace. Stephen now led a heart to the K and a
heart back to Jean's Ace. I won the Diamond return and led the Ace of
spades to promote Jean's Heart 10. Again 100% on the board. Most people
were making lots of tricks in hearts. It looks like we might make 4
spades, but this goes down on repeated heart leads and the 4-2 trump break.

The next hand (board 20) we did not defend so well-

The bidding-

Jean led the 10 of Diamonds (good start!). I won with the ACE, played the
King and switched to the 5 of clubs. Jean wins with the Ace, thinks a bit
and plays a club - (curse!) thinking I might have a singleton club.
Perhaps I should play the club 10 (or 6) to help a bit. Those of you that
attended Malcolm's 'Masterclass' at the beginning of the season last year
will remember a hand with exactly the same theme - where a defender plays
his high cards 'the wrong way round' to portray the message that he wishes
to ruff. We scored just below average on this board - so others were also
not getting it right. (Stephen played a spade to the K and picked up my
three to the queen).

As you might have guessed there were a few other bad boards (and some good
ones! We finished 13th (about halfway).

Happy bridging


Clive