Report by John Auld

We arrived determined to avoid a repeat of the Warwickshire whitewash.The teams:

Dawes: David Burgess and Gordon Fullerton; Mark Goddard and David Hodge; Graham Lee and Frank Ball; John and Irene Auld

Porter: Geoff Topol and Lloyd Eagling; Martin Mellor and Carol Fisher; Mike and Daphne Coggles; Kyle Lam and Simon Spencer

Markham: Gerry Franklin and Mary Cook; Phil Dale and Ray Furlonger; Daniel Crook and Alex Allen; Bernard Scanlon and Tim Anderson 

Things began unpromisingly in the Dawes as we lost 34 imps in the first set and they stayed unpromising after three sets as we lost a further imp to be -35. In casting around for material I was informed by one teammate that none of his results must appear in print. Fearing an injunction I have no choice but to feature a couple of good results at the Aulds` table in the final set starting with board 26:

 The Worcestershire North gazed lovingly at his huge hand as he carefully and irreproachably steered himself into 6NT. Faced with a ghastly choice I tried a small spade lead. That gave declarer a cheapish trick with the S10 and he followed with the Ace of spades. Now two top clubs  (discarding spades from dummy) saw me throw a diamond and North`s ardour was cooling. He drove out the Ace of Diamonds and won the club return. As declarer cashed winners I clung to four small hearts and left declarer with the problem of making all his heart suit. When the Ace of hearts drew Irene`s 10 he should probably have viewed to drop the Queen to make 6NT but alas for Worcestershire he finessed for -400. The layout he was playing for was hearts 3-3 with Queen onside-unlikely on the play. An interesting point is that he should not discard two spades from dummy as this simplifies my discard problems.

That was a big gain and another followed on board 27:

Irene showed a maximum INT rebid without a major and I tried the slam. South cashed his Ace and led hearts. I was not tempted to finesse as I had the club suit and a possible squeeze to try. These plans dont usually work out but this was the day: after Ace of hearts, Queen of spades and six trumps North paused meaningfully with his four clubs and  the King of hearts. +920 was 10 imps.

And so the Dawes team won the last stanza by 35 imps to tie the match 10-10 in VPs. The Porter lost 5-15 and the Markham lost 6-14 but there was no whitewash! Our next objective is to actually win a match.