The Welsh Ladies Captain, Mike Close
does most of his work in the VuGraph room, where he
can identify the popular contracts, supply information to the teams about how
often a game or slam was bid and made, or which lead beats a contract.
With his team in last place for most of
the competition, he has had to find something to keep his (and the teams)
spirits up. Thus he keeps a lookout for instances of when his pairs score an
unique result, ie a contract not bid or a score not
matched anywhere else across the three competitions. With a minimum of 50 (and a maximum of
90) tables in play you would think this would be quite rare. Naah.
Of the uniques
I spotted, Beth and Sheila have managed an unimpressive 7, often due to
exuberance in the bidding, undoubled by trusting opponents. Daphne and Judy 15,
and Gilly and Laura an often suicidal 14.
Unique scores are generally bad, but
just occasionally they do provide a good result. Try Round 15 Board 15 (Dealer
South, N-S Vul)
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QJT82 KJ93 AJ K3 |
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In the match against Scotland I saw
that the Scottish N/S had bid to 4H, a very thin contract found by about 20%
of the competition. Expecting a 10 Imp loss I was pleasantly surprised when
our score in the other room flashed up - Gilly and
Laura had not only bid the game, but induced their opponents to bid the
unique 5C as a save. This was doubled for 800 and an 8 imp gain.
Laura’s only comment afterwards – “sorry captain, I think
we could have got them another one down.” |
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64 QT6 QT972 AT2 |
K53 A2 853 QJ864 |
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A97 8754 K64 975 |
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We had been bottom for some
considerable time by the last Wednesday, some 30 points adrift of the Czechs,
but the match against Germany gave heart to the ladies, only losing 57-46
(13-17). Another excellent result against a tough Russian side (62-70, 14-16)
on Thursday and a good win against fellow strugglers Belarus (47-25, 20-10)
left us 14 VPs adrift on Friday morning. With the Czechs losing 5-25 to the
French and their last 3 games being Italy, Germany, Sweden, all medal hopefuls,
they were likely to come back towards us.
Gilly and Laura had joined the “Minus 1100 Plus”
club early on in the competition, but on the last Thursday Beth Wennell said “ well at least we have not gone for
1100 yet”. Invoking the Murray Walker Kiss of Death gods is very rash,
and in the next set against Croatia, this board appeared. (Round 24 Board 9, Dealer
North, E-W Vul)
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T3 A9 K7532 AQJ7 |
Laura and Gilly
made 3NT + 3 as N/S for a quiet 490. On viewgraph the auction went 1NT
– P – 2C (stayman) – double
– redouble (I have good clubs) - All Pass, and declarer played well to
make an overtrick for +760. With Beth East and Sheila West the
auction went 1D – P – 1H – 2C – X – 2S –
X – 3C – X - All pass, and Sheila went 4 down to join the Minus
1100 club. Sheila and Beth were disappointed
that this was not an unique score. There were about 12 others conceding 1100
in 3Cx or 1Sx or 2Sx and 5 more went for 1400. |
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Q KT5 J4 KT95432 |
A87654 8643 T98 --- |
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KJ92 QJ72 AQ6 86 |
We beat Croatia 62-53, 17-13 and the
Czechs predictably lost 6-24 to the Italians. We were now 3 VPs behind. We lost
the second match 11-19 to Greece, but the Czechs had lost 5-25 to the Germans,
and we were now 3 VPs ahead!
In the last match Sweden rushed ahead
of the Czechs, seeking a medal, and it was soon 4-25. We were holding Belgium
for the first ten boards. Looking good. But fatigue set in and mistakes
appeared, the match started to drift away from us and the Czechs rallied to
6-24. I felt like Michael Caine in the film Zulu, his
voice breaking as he shouted to his men “Hold them. Hold them!” We
hung on, losing 9-21 and I could hand over the wooden spoon to the Czech
captain.