Match report by Lloyd Eagling

Notts travelled to Leicester with many established players and partnerships unavailable so my thanks go to all those who played,particularly those in new scratch partnerships.

The teams:

Dawes: Lloyd Eagling and Keith Rodgers; Willie Crook and David Hodge; Martin Mellor and Carol Fisher; Gordon Fullerton and Frank Ball

Porter: Ellen Overton and Jackie Parsons; Irene Auld and Simon Spencer; Chris and Dorothy Close; Chris Clark and Barbara Hatfield

Markham: Peter and Margaret Savage; Ray Furlonger and Nick Clarke; Janet Jacques and June Marron; Frank Turton and David Landon

The duplimated boards contained no fewer than 9 possible slam hands and the one that was kindest to Notts was board 10:

Only one Notts pair failed to bid a slam whilst the opponents missed out 3 times.Remarkably one Leics pair managed to go off in 6S.

The only Notts pair to bid the grand slam were Willie Crook and David Hodge with the sequence shown.David was probably alone in rebidding a forcing 2NT but it worked well. Willie offered spades as a possibility and then cleverly emphasised his clubs as slam approached. David pondered and eventually bid 7C. Well done.

At tea time we were +23 in the Dawes,-18 in the Porter and+2 in the Markham.

Board 25 was another big hand:

This time everybody bid a slam and the grand was found no less than 6 times- unfortunately four times by the opposition. Carol Fisher and Martin Mellor had no problems reaching 7NT with the sequence above. Carol opened a strong club and as I understand it showed four aces in the auction. Martin was probably searching his bidding box for the 8NT card.

The final results were a win in the Dawes 20-0, a loss in the Porter 0-20 and a win in the Markham 15-5.

A special mention for Martin and Carol who stepped up to the first team and whom I expect to have the best imp score when the Butler imps are computed.