Western League

Ann and I had a rare outing in the Western League match against Wiltshire, and although we had a good card this was more due to the generosity of our opponents than any great competence on our part. This is the sort of thing that happens when you are having a lucky day, a hand where most of the green cards seemed to have gone missing from the bidding box.

We were East-West. My 4♥ was certainly not a good idea, shifting the opponents from a non-making contract to a cold game, but my partner was there to save the day. You may think that she had mis-sorted her hand when she bid 5♠ but I couldn't possible comment, and you cannot argue with success.

The bridge was a bit less random on this hand

West found the most challenging lead of ♠9, and now declarer will go down if he tries to draw two rounds of trumps, as the defence can engineer a spade ruff and then switch to a club. I think the best line is to win in dummy and immediately play ♦A (discarding a club) and run the ♦Q, setting up a second diamond winner if East has the king.  I took a slightly inferior line by playing one round of trumps, won by West won who continued spades. I won this in dummy and now played on diamonds, which was good enough on the actual lie of the cards, and worth a 12 imp swing when one of the opposing declarers went down.