A largely disappointing day. We lost the first match to Latvia somewhat unexpectedly by 7 imps despite several good boards from Allerton/Jagger.

A great 31 imp win against Belgium followed to kickstart our charge (we hoped). This was dashed when lowly Switzerland played out of their skins getting everything right to beat us by 10.

The day’s most interesting board saw Tony Forrester hold a 9 card heart suit headed by AKJ.

The full deal:
                     K10x
                      Q
                      J10xxx
                      Kxxx
AQ9xxx.                     Jxx
10xx.                           -
x.                                 AKQxxx
Jxx.                             AQ10x
                     x
                AKJxxxxxx
                      x
                      xx

Forrester correctly judged to save over the opponents vul 6S contract, knowing that at green he was bound to be cheap. The excitement came at the other table where Allerton  was allowed to play in 6S after a 2S then 2NT relay had been overcalled with 5H. 

He faced a heart lead and had to judge the play. He ruffed the heart lead and ran the Jack of spades. North won the King and put the pressure on by switching to a cunning high club, threatening dummies entries if diamonds didn’t run. Allerton made no mistake by letting the lead come round to his Jack (whew!) drawing trumps and claiming for a substantial gain on the board.

Tomorrow we face Ukraine, then the leaders Russia, followed by Denmark. A tougher day on paper than our last couple of days.

Neil