After two days off for Jane and Simon, with Pam and Barbara playing in the Swiss Pairs, we reconvened as team Edler for the one day Congress Restricted Teams. After our 14th place finish in the two day teams event, was it a coincidence we were seeded 14th for this event?

The official results show us winning two and losing four of the six matches in the event. We thought we had won the second match of the event, primarily due to board 15.

Holding a 9 card club suit, I decided to open this 5C as South. West considered their options for some time before electing to double which ended the bidding. I made the obvious 10 tricks for -200. Our teammates brought back a score of +480 playing in hearts for a 7 imp gain and a match win by 5 imps. However….

Making 12 tricks EW in hearts seemed a little odd as there appears to be two obvious spade losers. The opposing team came to our table suggesting that the spade ace wasn’t in the south hand, but the east hand. It was soon confirmed that several tables had played the board in a fouled state, apparently due to a dealing error. Sadly, our +7 imps was then removed and our 5 imp win turned into a 2 imp loss. C’est la vie!

A lot of NZ pairs play Acol, which features a 12-14 1NT opening. It was interesting to try and counter this, on a number of occasions we chose to defend against 1NT rather than enter the auction, as happened on board 4 from match 1.

After two passes, East opened 1NT which closed the auction. As South I chose not to enter the auction, but defend the vulnerable contract. On a club lead and a misplay by declarer in the diamond suit (losing to Jane’s DQ allowing Jane to now lead through declarer’s CK), we defeated the contract by 3 tricks for +300. At Pam and Barbara’s table, East opened 1C and played there, also down 3 for a flat board!

We thoroughly enjoyed our time at the Congress, I would rank it as the friendliest congress I have played in. I thoroughly would recommend making an effort to play in a couple of events at next year’s congress.

And yes, as Hugh suggested in his blog, we have no stamina, as I’m writing this a couple of days late from Picton after a relaxing afternoon crossing Cook Strait on the Interisland Bluebridge Ferry, while Hugh was slogging it out in the matchpoint pairs qualifying 😊