Report by John Auld 

The first match of 2019/20 was against Leicestershire. 

The teams with Butler imps were:

Not much doubt about the worst pair and even less about the best. I do not remember a score of 95 Butler imps before, so congratulations to Keith & Lloyd. How did they do it? Consider board 13:

Lloyd opened a Lucas 2H meaning 5 Hearts and another suit c. 5 - 9 points.  South stepped off the cliff edge with 2NT and Keith doubled- loudly no doubt, or as loudly as use of a bidding box permits. North's willingness to play there can only be attributed to a grudge against South or to extreme confidence in his dummy play. On a heart lead and careful defence South conceded 1700, making just HAK.  He lost clubs to West who continued hearts before putting East in with SA. Lloyd  now cashed his hearts and squeezed declarer to death. No one else earned a penalty as East West. Presumably an initial pass was popular.

I dont like to disagree with someone who outscores me by 159 Butler imps but I think that Lloyd is too good for any kind of weak two. Personally I would open 1H, but that does not lead to +1700. If a 1NT overcall is doubled both North and East will be bidding.

The Dawes team started losing their match from an early stage. In particular slams were a problem. This was board 2:

At our table a strong Leicestershire pair started 1S-3H and finished in 6H which with 6NT was a popular choice round the room. This is very slightly better than a 3-3 heart break and therefore odds against. Our star players Willie Crook and Tony Sowter found the only odds on slam with the above sequence. 3H was game forcing and the subsequent 4C bid was key.

The slam was good but the club split was bad. Willie played it as any good player would in practise, winning the DQ on table cashing SQ and coming to hand to ruff a spade . With normal breaks the hand is over-and even with a 5-2 spade break there are decent chances. But clubs 5-1 meant one off. The deals analysis states that 7C can be made double dummy, probably combining a cross ruff with a ruffing heart finesse. Certainly 6C can get home by cashing top spades and diamonds before cross ruffing but the odds are hard to calculate. At the table it is near impossible.

The bad luck story continued with clubs breaking badly on board 3 for two minus scores in the Dawes match, before Willie made a nice play on board 6:

West led S10 and East cleared the suit. Now Willie ran H10 to the J. West tried a small club; Willie paused a moment before rising with the K.  Now he was home. This defensive club play was made at several tables with declarer ducking to the Q to lose a spade, with a heart coming next.  Eight declarers went one off.

Overall it would be inaccurate to suggest that the Dawes team were unlucky.  Board 9 was another slam hand:

Our opponents  bid to 6C easily enough playing 2 over one as game forcing. None of the other Dawes pairs managed to bid the cold 6S or 6C.  Perhaps I should have tried a weak 2H as North.

By contrast all 4 tables in the Porter bid slam, and Shirley and Pravin bid the 100% 6NT by West.

So it was no surprise that the Dawes lost 3-17 while the Porter won 20-0. The Markham also won - by 13-7. Well played.

Captain Mark organised a debrief after the match attended by at least half the players. It was perhaps not the day for the Dawes team to offer advice but Tony Sowter and Steve Raine in particular willingly gave their time to discuss the hands. Many thanks.