Going into the last month of the Teams Ladder, the only players who could still win it were Geoff Nicholas (46 pts), Yours Truly (44) and Dave Thomas (41). At HT, my team was +18 IMPs, not brill but the others weren't plus at all. First hands of 2nd half, I'm up against Dave Thomas and Alan Wilson......

You are playing Standard Precision. Both pard's Xs are pens-oriented. Do you stand it or pull to 3C?

So many IMPs are won and lost on this kind of decision and I suspect my own track record is not too good in this area - too many -790s creeping through. My general philosophy is that a double by the hand which showed the first interest in getting a penalty (e.g. by doubling or redoubling) shows good Hxxx or better and double by the other hand shows Hxx or better, i.e. penalty-oriented but pard is free to take it out if he hasn't got the expected trumps, if he's short on defensive tricks, or whatever. So here pard has 10-11 HCP and four spades. Maybe we have an 80% chance of beating 2S but my ODR is highish and, with the state of the ladder, I decided it was safer to run to 3C. Rob converted to 3D and there we played. Dave didn't double, for fear Alan would run to 3S.

The play in 3D was not pretty. Mind you, nor was dummy. Dave led HK and I won in dummy. Everything looked horrible but I thought I'd try to pitch a heart on the 3rd top spade and make a heart ruff or two later. But Dave ruffed the 2nd spade, cashed HJ and led H9 to the 10 and Alan's DK. I over-ruffed and tried C3 from hand but Dave went in with the Q, to play CA and a 3rd club, ruffed by Alan. A spade return was ruffed with the 10 and over-ruffed, then Alan ruffed another club, for a further spade through. I threw a club but Dave ruffed with the 8 and still had another trump to come. I made just 4 tricks!

Oddly, our side would probably have made 7 tricks in 2S*. H8 lead looks clear. East does best to duck but even if he takes HA and leads a red card back, declarer only has the one trump in dummy to lead and cannot get to hand quick enough to lead them again. The 1st spade goes to my 10 and eventually I will get to ruff a heart as well, with pard making three trump tricks later on.

At the other table, the result was 3C - 2 so we lost 4 IMPs. If we'd scored 500 in 2S*, we'd've gained 12 IMPs and (other things being equal), I'd've won the Ladder instead of Dave, for what that's worth. Still, interesting hand.

On that one, oppos have 19 HCP and a 7-card spade fit. On the next one it's 17 HCP and a 7-card fit ........

This was the last hand of the evening.

Still Precision. Worth a red card?

Well, pard's 2nd double marks him with 11 HCP and it seems unlikely that declarer will have five trumps, as she didn't bid on the 1st round. With K108 in trumps and a good club suit to lead (and a pretty good opening for me!) ...... plus I felt one more good score might be needed for first place ......

So I doubled and led CK. Dummy's diamonds looked a bit threatening and, with declarer limited to 2 HCP, I switched to a heart to try to knock out dummy's entry. When this ran to the J and Q, disaster was looming large. Esme played SA and another to Rob's J. He too led a heart and this pinned my K. Esme could get to hand by playing 3 rounds of diamonds, to concede one more trump and a club and claim the rest. Just the one overtrick then.

The winning defence is for Rob to overtake my CK and fire a heart through. That way we get HK and a H ruff as well as the two clubs and two further trumps for one off. That's also possible if I lead a club at trick 2 to pard's Ace and then the H comes through but I will need to overtake SJ on the 2nd round of trumps.

Looking at the hand record afterwards, it was immediately clear that the East and West hands had been switched. Alas our team-mates had played it the same way round so the result had to stand. Worth a try!

Oppos are playing Acol, 5-card majors and 1D is alerted as being possibly three. What do you lead? What do you lead without the double?

I was East, making the Lightener double which (in my view) was plainly asking for the 1st suit bid by dummy, i.e. diamonds. But Rob led a disastrous S4, later saying that because the 1D was "conventional", spades was the requested lead.

I went up with SK and returned a heart but declarer crossed to CK, ran S10, cashed HA and successfully relied on the clubs coming in for nine tricks.

What a difference on D7 lead, probably going to the 8 and 9! I might now lead Ds from the top but say I just push back a heart. What can declarer do? Waste the only entry to hand now, or lead spades off table? If she gets to hand, does she cash HA or not? The spade finesse can only be taken once and I think she will be stuck on 7 tricks.

It wasn't Geoff's night either, so Dave (who had to do quite a bit of wheeling and dealing to make sure I wasn't in his team) emerged as the Ladder Champ (+38 being good enough for 1st place and 10 pts on the night; we dropped to +7 IMPs) - well done to him!