was opened on my right. Slightly
wrong-footed by the opening, I hesitated and felt I had to bid.
1NT seemed to be the least bad option and I was soon in game
after the transfer sequence:I entered my first Camrose Pre-Trials in 1973 with Mike Pomfrey. Having entered only on the odd occasion since, this was the first year I have done more than make up the numbers. Brian Senior and I finished second in the final trial. I thought the trials were good standard and good fun. I hope to play next year.
All the pairs in the qualifying positions (which actually meant all the pairs above average) were asked which weekends they would be available. Brian is playing professionally in Australia during the Scotland match and my skiing holiday clashes with the Eire game. We were selected to play in the other two matches against Wales in Cheltenham in January and against Northen Ireland in Belfast in March.
I was invited to attend with a "companion"” - EBU-speak for wife. (Clearly "partner"” would be too confusing). So Liz and I were summoned to Cheltenhm for 5pm on the Friday evening in time for a "bonding ”dinner" at 7.30pm. Why it was necessary to be two and a half hours early was never satisfactorily explained. It was, though, a taste of things to come: much hanging around.
Before the bonding dinner, we attended a reception by the Mayor of Cheltenham. His speech taught us anything we ever wanted to know about Cheltenham and quite a lot more besides.
The dinner and team meeting the following day were chaired by the NPC Keith Stanley and also attended by the assistant NPC, Jason Hackett, whose attendance as assistant now means that he is qualified to be a Camrose NPC in the future. Neither Hackett twin has played a Camrose match as they now only play if paid.
On to the bridge. Brian and I played the first ten boards on VuGraph where I suffered the ignominy of falling off in a cold 3NT as follows:
Sitting South, I held Q84 A9 K4 A108763 and a loose 1 was opened on my right. Slightly
wrong-footed by the opening, I hesitated and felt I had to bid.
1NT seemed to be the least bad option and I was soon in game
after the transfer sequence:
|
Plan the play on the 4 lead to the
King:
|
Rather than having to find any more discards from dummy (the
diamond suit furnishing the first one) I elected to win the Ace
and play 
A and 3. RHO won with the K and played a
small club to the 8 and 9. Then West cashed the Q to enable East to cash the 
A and the J. One off, the full
hand being something like:
|
It was pointed out that simply ducking the first two clubs,
discarding a spade and a diamond from dummy, leaves West stuck.
He can't play clubs, (or I continue the suit) so a spade is
probably best. But I can win, lead a diamond (which has to be
ducked) to the K and then cash my hearts. A small spade at the
end enables me to make the Q and the
A.
At the end of Match One, England had lost 13-7. We played, to little good effect, the first ten boards of the evening and were then benched for the next twenty boards. England lost 11-9.
The next day, Match Three is played in four stanzas - more opportunity to hang around.
Try an opening lead. Sitting South, you hold KJ104 8 AJ10762 J9 and you hear:
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|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I tried the 
8, not so much to get
a ruff as to be passive. Obviously wrong. The full hand:
|
It was pointed out that with East not bidding 3NT even
though he held good diamonds, he could not hold AQ. Lovely.
In the Vu-Graph room, Liz told me, emotions were running high. The camera hovered expectantly over one player after another as they took forever to come up with their bids. Knowing what had happened in the Open Room added to the tension. In one of the nail-biting silences a small, bored child asked loudly, "Daddy, have they all got cards?"; David Burn, the commentator, answered lugubriously, "Oh, they've all got cards - it's just most of them don't know what to do with them."
During the last match, England finally got to grips with their slam bidding and the net result was a win to England but the Welsh were still in good heart. They had led until Match Three, their team spirit remained as good as ever and they were excellent company for the celebration dinner that rounded off the weekend.