Manchester F2F Winter League

4 members decided they would form a team to play in the Manchester County F2F winter league as Glossop Unpredictables. The format is a team matches against another 4 person team where one pair play N/S and other other pair plays E/W and the net score for each board is then converted to IMPS.

This competition gives us the opportunity to play a range of different players from different clubs in different places. The experience is quite intense as you are playing 2 sets of 12 boards against each of the other teams pairs. 11 teams entered the league and this was split into 2 leagues of 5 and 6 teams. As we were new to the competition we were placed in the 2nd division of 6 teams giving us 5 matches and entry into the counties Higson Cup competition (more later)

For our 1st match we travelled to an impressive church on Wilbraham Rd, Chorton where we played a good team Chorlton Challengers. After the 1st 12 boards we meet to compare scores and we were somewhat disappointed to find ourselves trailing by a substantial margin. However for the second 12 boards, which we played against the other pair we made a substantial comeback to eventually win by 78 Imps to 27, giving us a massive 26 Victory points (calculated from the 53 Imp difference)

Our 2nd match was at Ashton Bridge Club playing Ashton Imps. Prior to the match I said 'Do NOT let Ken double you' as it can make a substantial loss of points. Again after 12 boards we were trailing. However on the 2nd set our pair at the other table allowed Ken to double them!  but at my table the opposing pair made a 5♣ bid over our contract and a double then more than recouped the loss at the other table. We eventually won by 59 Imps to 44 and were very relieved.

Our 3rd match was again at Ashton against a much stronger team, Ashton Aces, that included a player currently ranked 3rd in the NGS rankings for Manchester. The 1st board did not go well when my 3NT contract (with 18 points after Paul had shown an opening hand) went down when all his points were in ♣s with no entry and I failed to take my winners. The opponents at the other table were also in 3NT but lost less tricks, -150 away or -4 IMPs, not a good start!

However later in the round Joe & Chris P made some very good bidding to reach a 6NT slam and Chris made all 13, while our opponents (including the top player) stopped in 3NT and made 11, a net gain to us of 810 points or 13 Imps. We finished the round +33 Imps largely due to this slam.

On the 2nd set of 12 boards we actually lost 16 Imps, largely due to our opponents bidding a very aggressive 5♦ game which they played very well. However at the end we were relieved to finish with a good 17 Imp win giving us a further 19 Vps, largely due to Chris's slam. This emphasises the need to to bid vulnerable games and slams at teams

The current table is below but we still have 2 very strong teams to play

Hopefully we can maintain our form