A team: Won 12-8 (despite being 57imps down at half time)

B team: Lost 2-18

C team: Lost 8-12

Using the cross-imps on the MCOL site (so across all MCOL matches), the cross imps were:

A clear stand-out performance there from Clare and Graham, so congratulations to them!

There were a lot of interesting hands, but one in particular stood out for me, which was board 26.
7D is cold and generally should be found, particularly when South opens 1D (if East opens a frisky 2H, it gets more difficult, but I don’t think that was common). 7D was only found at 3 tables in our match (and only 18 out of 46 tables overall – so our match is fairly representative). The bidding to 7D could be as simple as 1D – 5NT – 7D (alternatively, it is ok to bid 1S and force in Diamonds later). I would be interested in any thoughts that people had about why the grand was not bid more (fatigue? Fear of grands? Forgot GSF?)

There was another freakish board in board 2. At most tables, the opening bid was 4S which should be doubled by South for takeout and North should bid 6C (with EW then going to 6S which should be doubled for one down). This generally did not happen with 4S or 5S usually being the final contract (both N and S should bid over 4S, yet it was the contract 4 times). This was a more difficult judgement board (at least to go to slam), but it surprised me that slam was only bid at two tables (admittedly they played in 5S against us after psyching a 4NT opening as opposed to a 4S opening – in hindsight we should have done better) – again any thoughts would be appreciated. Do we need to do some practice around slam bidding, high level competition? (not easy things to practice so if anyone has ideas on how to facilitate such please let me know).

Mark Goddard