Mixed performance

It was the 'Bobby Allan' last night at the club, the SBU Simultaneous Mixed Pairs. As holders we were striving for another 70+% session to give us a chance of retaining the trophy but we missed a few opportunities and the opponents did some good things, so lightning was never striking again.

We scored 62% at the club but I'd scored it as 53%, so I guess we'll be somewhere in between. Our cause was not helped when Reg pushed to a notrump slam holding a balanced eleven points opposite (a known) nineteen points. Perhaps last year this would have proved to be a foolish action and we'd score a top, but this time there were thirteen (!) tricks available and we'll score very poorly for this.

Some pairs were more generous as we scored two +800s and a +300 on a part-score hand, but we lost out on a number of hands where our opponents were ultra-cautious and the cards rewarded this. We were sitting against the cards, playing only eight of the twenty-four hands, and you just cannot win with such a low percentage (of course the opponents played three hands that should have been ours, but to win you need to be playing considerably more than your opponents). Even worse, I only played two hands all evening - although LotG is a good card player I am more likely to gain the odd trick either through skill or by creating problems for the defence.

We'll see how the score stands up over the next few days, but I think we'll be nearer 55% than 60%.