[fred]

Fluffy, on Jun 13 2007, 01:30 PM, said:

So east had ♠Q9xx and ♥K with only 1 diamond?

Yes. East was 4315 with the Q9 of spades, the K7 of hearts, and the King of clubs. The 7 of hearts was important from a defensive point of view when the strong hand was the dummy (as it was at my table) because its doubleton heart was the 98.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[bhall]

It's worth noting that this was an unusually swingy match, with more than 500 IMPs changing hands, and a final margin of around 40 IMPs. The most obvious category of adverse swings for Fred's team was slams.

On the very last board, both teams reached a nearly hopeless 7♣. Yes, Meckwell failed the test, as did (more understandably) Martel and Stansby. Anyone interested in testing their own slam bidding and play coud benefit from going over the hands of this match, which featured a missed "baby" grand in the very first segment of play.