On the board

It might be the fourth round of the ten in the club pairs championship but we now have a "keeper", one of the six that we'll need to try and keep the title. Unfortunately Brian and George already have three keepers so we are going to struggle and, until the scoring errors are resolved, it is not quite clear what score we have actually obtained. But I know it's a keeper!

We got a joint top on board 24:

We don't play any methods over the strong two clubs opening except that a negative of two diamonds, so LotG decided to play a waiting game with a two hearts response. This will probably right-side a notrump contract but there is a real danger that I'll think she has five hearts: on the other hand, we just play natural over a two notrump response and we might miss a major fit. Perhaps an area where we could do more work!

However, LotG was well placed when I rebid two notrump as she could introduce her spades. Simple Blackwood showed all her controls and I could see that the grand slam would depend, at worst, on the heart finesse and would be solid if she held a red suit queen.

LotG played the hand well, preparing for a club-hearts squeeze, but this was not necessary when the jack of clubs dropped. Tony and Brian also bid and make this.