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Captain's blog: day 3
Day 3
‘The condemned man ate a hearty breakfast…’ The Captain generally arrives about 8.30 to secure a table. But Andrew MacIntosh (Tosh) is here with the English, and encourages them to invade our territory – again!
The Netherlands players have bright orange shirts. They also have bright orange laminated convention cards, which are dazzling and hard to read. I consider a formal complaint – maybe I can garner support from other captains. We follow our usual practice, losing a game swing on Board 1. This gives me a headache, trying to work out how game could possibly make…. Seems it requires an inspired defence. But hey, we get an imp back on Board 2! And on Board 4 Liam and Ronan are one of only 7 pairs to bid an excellent slam for 13 more. Have we peaked too soon? In a word… Board 9 is a killer:
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♠ 5 ♥ - ♦ KQJ9654 ♣ QT743 |
EW Vul Dealer N |
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Ronan opens 5D, East overcalls 5S, Liam doubles. Killer defence (found by Italy) is DA lead, SPS signal for hearts, heart ruff, club through, and 2 trump tricks to come for 1100. Liam finds a less devastating lead of CA and fails to spot the ruff, so we pick up just 200. We needed 1100 to flatten the board: the Netherlands reach 6DX, to which there is no defence.
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♠ 873 ♥ KJT976 ♦ T2 ♣ 52 |
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♠ AQT942 ♥ AQ54 ♦ 3 ♣ K8 |
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♠ KJ6 ♥ 832 ♦ A87 ♣ AJ96 |
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In the end we achieve an honourable draw, 42-42. It was a swingy set! Several matches exchanged over 100 imps.
Et maintenant…. La France.
Whatever happened to French Standarde? Variable no-trumps, 2H = 4+4+Ms, 2S= Muiderberg….
Sadly they still play the cards better than we do and we are soon 1-24 down. Then they play in clubs in both rooms, rarely a good idea. Qx opposite xxx goes for 500 on the 7-1 break. (Seems they are unused to penalty doubles of 1NT: one player plays Stayman, the other does not.) Unlucky. Exchanges are even-ish for the rest of the match and we emerge with 3.77 VPs. We sink to below average, behind both Ireland and England. (Ireland are just one place ahead of us now, having a bad day with a heavy loss to Israel and a 20-0 defeat by Estonia.)
Finally – Sweden. I would be happy to finish the day with 20 VPs, but why should my team make me happy? The BBO environment clearly gets to Glen, who commits 3 cardinal sins in the first 5 boards. My fault, failed to explain the Cardinal Sins in time. Grrrh! It can’t get worse, surely? Ronan and Liam are deservedly pleased with their card, but we have just 2.97VP to finish the day with 16.74.
We lie 15th of 23 teams, averaging just 8.6VP. Just 2 VP behind Ireland who managed about 3.5 VP today, but a long way adrift of England in 12th place, 20 VP ahead of us.
We play England tomorrow morning – fingers crossed!
Athena flies home on Tuesday to graduate – I had no choice but the 6.30am shuttle, honest!