Notts v Staffordshire - 29^th June 2008

Firstly, many thanks to all those who played, and secondly congratulations for a very commendable result - especially to the Markham team for an outstanding win.

The Teams:

Dawes - Lloyd Eagling & Keith Rodgers; Daphne & Mike Coggles; Rob Atkinson & Gerry Franklin; Ellen Overton & Martin Mellor.
Porter - Graham Lee &Dick Milne; Phil Dale & Ray Furlonger; Jackie Parsons & Evelyn Grainger; Chris Clark & Barbara Hatfield.
Markham - Janet Jacques & Will Irving; Sally Cook & Mary Cook; Richard Kowalski & Stan Kujawinski; Sylvia Goodlud & Nick Clarke.

Board 15 seemed to produce a wide variety of results:

N/S Vul - Dealer South

At our table South opened 1♠ (playing a canapé system), 1♦ from West, 4♥ from North, 5♦ by East passed back to North who bid on to 5♥.
We duly managed to collect our 2 aces and waited for the setting heart trick.

At teatime we were 4 IMPs down in the Dawes, 14 IMPs up in the Porter, and 75 IMPs (!!) up in the Markham. As seems to be usual, we snatched defeat in the first two matches from a good position but the Markham team strode further ahead.

From my point of view, the match seemed to produce more calls for the director than a few! The most testing being to sort out being board 28:

N/S Vul - Dealer West

West opened 1♣ and North overcalled 3♣, explained initially as the red suits, then as showing diamonds and spades - thus making it very difficult for E/W to find their spade fit.
East decided to bid 3NT and having had a diamond led, failed to play low on the second round expecting the diamonds to be in the North hand. The director’s decision on appeal was an adjustment to give E/W 5 IMPs.

The final results were 7-13 for the Dawes team. 5-15 for the Porter, and 20-0 for the Markham.
Congratulations to everybody, especially to Nick and Sylvia for the best card on the Butler IMPing.

Match Report by Lloyd Eagling