Gold Cup

I mentioned in a previous post that I'm cheering (long distance) for the Nick Stevens team. Well, the results of round 4 are in and the draw for round 5 is out. Nick and his crew won quite handily in round 4, but to get to the quarter-finals, they have a serious hurdle to jump. In round 5 they face the team captained by Patrick Collins (Derek Patterson, Gerald Tredinnick, Stuart Tredinnick). These are the number 2 seeds, and have actually won the Gold Cup previously, and they have been the losing finalists the last two years. So not an easy match ahead, but I know my guys can win if they play up on the day. I think Collins ought to just give it up, to save themselves the agony.

Grand Slam

I hadn't played for two and a half months, but I broke the drought last night at the Manhattan. It's STAC week again, so I played with Agent 99 to see if we could collect some silver. We overbid like crazy, which seemed to be a winning strategy as we finished up with over 64%, which was good for second place East-West. We only had one real bottom, but there were a few boards distinctly below average. One in particular is driving me crazy.



I played in 6S, claiming all 13 tricks when the opening club lead wasn't ruffed. That was a poor score, 2.5 out of 11 matchpoints, as a number of people found a grand slam or 6NT. I want to bid this to 7S, but I have been struggling to find a convincing sequence when we start 1H – 1S; 1NT (15-16 hcp). Even if we were playing strong jump-shifts and started 1H – 2S; 3S I'm having trouble getting to where I can count thirteen tricks with any degree of certitude. Perhaps I'm overlooking something obvious because we're out of practice, or perhaps I'm expecting too much exactitude. But I do like to be pretty sure for grand slams. I'll punt small slams with the best of them, but not grands.

GNT Flight B

Well, Elwood and I have formally withdrawn from the team to represent NYC in New Orleans. It's a bit sad, all things considered, but we had no choice. My wife has been (and still is) very ill, and Elwood has his own domestic troubles of a different sort. I haven't even been playing bridge for the past couple of months, except for a little time on BBO (and I really don't like online "bridge"). Elwood commented that this year was his fourth attempt to win the thing, and now he finally has the chance, he can't go. C'est la vie, but it still sucks at least a little.

I hope the Feuers get the chance to go with another pair of teammates. They played very well, and really deserve to go.