Forty eight players gathered at the centre for the AVB Christmas Party Night. As you can see by this pic, drinks were given out liberally before the bridge session!

It was a case of two wrongs making a right last night. My partner, Barry Meacham, made some excellent decisons helping us to a 60% win.
On table one, board 2, Tony opened 1♣. Holding both majors my partner might have chosen to double but decided to get the five card major across early by bidding 1♠.
Ian Raynes made an excellent 'trap pass' and Tony made a very good take-out double in the south seat.
Ian had this auction where he wanted it and chose to defend 1♠ doubled, by passing.
I never, ever rescue partners. So I rescued partner by bidding 2♥!
Tony now bid 3♣ and my redoubtable partner raises me to 3♥ (yikes!)
Ian might have chosen to bid the vulnerable 3NT now but decided that discretion was the better part of valour and settled for 4♣ which is where the auction ended.
My partner Barry had been heroic up until now, but more was to come!
The lead often gives away tricks that declarer wouldn't have made otherwise and so it proves on this hand. Barry didnt fancy leading fourth highest spade. The heart holding of AQ looked too dangerous to lead from and underleading the King of Diamonds to a passed-hand (twice) partner looked dangerous also. He chose (wait for it) a singleton trump lead! As you can see by the hand layout, this was the perfect lead which consigns this contract to 1 off.
Well done Barry!

We had quite a few distributional hands last night but, sadly, not all of them lived up to my expectations.

This one did.  East is dealer with an interesting 6-5-1-1 shape.  Surprisingly, pass is the best bid for the moment.  The hand is not good enough for a 1-level opening; nor is it the right shape for a 'weak two'.  It is better not to pre-empt when you have length in a major as well as your primary suit as you may miss a major suit fit.  The suit quality is also very poor.
But after partner bids 1NT you can get excited and go to town. 

By 'bidding' spades first (here we are using transfers) and rebidding hearts at the 4-level partner will get the message that you are at least 5-5 in these two suits.  If you know you want to be in game, tell partner; if you leave him to guess don't be upset when he gets it wrong.  West must have 3 cards in one of these suits after opening 1NT and can either pass 4♥ or correct to 4♠.  It is important to bid spades first.  If you started with hearts, you would need to rebid 3♠, which is still forcing to game but indicates 5/6 hearts and only 4 spades.

Aylesbury Vale raised £166.59 for the Children in Need appeal. Eleven tables on Tuesday evening raised £108.89 and 7.5 tables on Thursday raised £57.70.
The national result can be viewed on www.ecatsbridge.com