It's almost exactly 50 years since I first played in the Gold Cup. Back then the entry was about 600 teams and the quality was variable so that we could usually expect to get through a couple of rounds. Nowadays the entry has dropped below 100 teams but the standard is much higher and there are no easy matches.
After a comfortable win in Round 1, we were pleasantly surprised to survive a close match against Clive Owen's team and then had to play against Peter Lee's team in the last 32. We were big underdogs for this match, as the opposition could field two players with Gold Cup victories on their palmares.
We were down by a few imps after 8 boards, but then came one of those rare sets where everything we touched turned to gold.
Ann and I had a rather agricultural auction to slam, which made easily on a heart lead. At the other table Richard Granville and David Burn were playing Richard's own Mosso system, which is partly based on the methods used by Fantoni and Nunes (before the Italians were banned for their illegal signals on defence). On this hand South opened a natural but unlimited and forcing 1♥ and after a few relays showed a balanced 17+ and then a mimimum. North might have tried for slam but chose to leave matters in 3NT. The irony is that during the Mosso relays South had spades first, so that they had the chance to reach the optimum contract of 6♠ by South.
On the next board you had to find a lead from
after the auction 1NT-3NT. I led the queen of spades which in our methods asks for an attitude signal, while in the other room a low spade was chosen. Although I think it is normal to lead a top card from this holding, it is easy enough to find layouts where a low card works better. This hand was not one of them.
At our table declarer ducked the spade lead and after I switched to a heart he ended down two, while the low spade lead gave Chris an easy ride in the other room.
The opponents then went off in a ridiculous slam, but the icing on the cake was this piece of outrageous good fortune.
The opponents stopped in a sensible 3♠, but my partner had the rose-tinted specs on and pushed us into a seemingly hopeless game. East kicked off with a top club but it was not clear who had the singleton so he switched to the jack of diamonds. I drew trumps and led a heart to the eight, ten and ace. The contract seemed to have no play but when West went into the tank I began to figure out what was going on. Eventually he exited with a low heart so I could win in hand and lead a club to set up a discard while West's heart winner was stranded.
West missed a chance there - if he exits with a diamond I can win in dummy and lead a heart, but he can rise with the ace and play another diamond to take out my entry to dummy while the heart suit is blocked. I can counter this by playing all my trumps before touching hearts. In order to keep four hearts, West must come down to two diamonds. Now I cash my diamonds ending in dummy and lead a heart towards the queen. It's a much easier game when you can see all four hands.
All that added up to a 47 imp set. Last year we had a similar purple patch in our Crockfords match against David Mossop's team and contrived to give it all away on the last set, but this time there were no major alarms and we kept a healthy lead to the end.