Still needing 0.10 gold points to become a Life Master (gnash, gnash) I decided to play it cool. On Sunday I played in the Swiss Teams, A/X strat. That's OK as an experience-gathering thing, but not necessarily a good strategy for winning points. We won 3 of our first 4 matches (a definite mis-step in a Swiss) and then lost the rest. So that was a red point or something. The only other entry was for a bracketed round-robin teams today (Wednesday). This was me and Agent 99, teamed with Elwood and one of his other partners (actually, one of the other directors at the Manhattan, and also a team-mate in the regional teams where I partner Elwood). That made for a relatively small master-point total for the team, so we were in bracket 5. This, then, was the one event I was relying on to win that elusive fraction.
After 2 matches we were first in the bracket. After 3, we slipped to a tie for second, but after 4 matches we were back in first. After 5, first. After 6, first. Going into the seventh and last match, we were only 2 VPs ahead of second place, but 9 VPs ahead of third, and about 15 VPs ahead of several other teams that were arguing about 4th, 5th, etc. And we were playing the third place team, so any sort of win would guarantee at least second place. Even losing 14-6 would preserve second, they would have to beat us 15-5 or worse to overtake us. So what happened? Disaster, of course.
After playing really quite well all day, and with her trademark aggressive bidding winning several swings, Agent 99 fell from grace on the last two boards, flooring two game contracts that were actually cold. Punishment was merciless: both games were bid and made at the other table, turning what would have been a 6-14 VP loss into a 0-20 VP blitz, and jeopardizing any gold points by dropping us into third place. We were left biting nails as we waited for the result of the final match. Both teams were within striking distance, if one or the other could manage a heavy win: we were hoping for something close to a tie. The result was finally put up as 14-6 for somebody or other. That left them one VP behind us, so third place was in, and that was 6 gold points - a bit more than I needed, but then, there wasn't anything for fourth.
This hand came up in the fourth match. Bidding the grand was worth 13 IMPs when they stopped at 6S at the other table. We only won the match by 7 IMPs.
I said Agent 99 is aggressive. At the other table, opener only raised to 3S, and responder was happy to settle for the small slam. When I saw the 4S raise, I said to myself that 7S must be on if we had all the keycards, and so it went. I received a trump lead, which made ruffing diamonds unattractive as a plan. So I decided to rely on trumps 3-2 and hearts 4-2, and that passed off smoothly.
edit: Actually, ruffing diamonds looks at least as good a plan, now that I'm not at the table. What can I say? At the time, I took a dislike to it.
2nd edit: And now that I can review the results on the GNYBA site, the team that finished just 1 VP behind us in 4th place was the opposing team for this slam (and all familiar faces from the Manhattan, too!).
