Hi all
Work and Dutch visitors have been eating my time. Here’s the last story from Reno.
After the first half against Stacy Jacob’s team (her not-so-up-to-date blog can be found here) we were ahead by a dozen IMP. That could have been two dozen if I hadn’t been a tad lazy when I blasted to small slam, the grand was on vanilla flavoured ice, so to speak.
Round 2.
The French ladies (D’Ovidio & Gaviard) join our table, and Drew and Michael pick up the glove against the Russian Gromova & Ponomareva. Geoff and I soon find out the French ladies are close to a breakdown, both nervous and partner wise. Or it looked like that. On this deal Geoff (North) ended up playing 3NT after I had overbid my hand by a mile and a half.
Because West had overcalled in 
Geoff decided to take the finesse in 
. That was down one and a three IMP loss due to a pass out at the other table. Man, that could have been a huge pickup!
Another loss.
Sitting South I opened 1 and after that West got to declare 4
. Catherine D’Ovidio took her chance after a lead, switch and continuation. She ruffed it in dummy to take the 
finesse, Ace of , followed by another ruff and a ruffed with the Ace of trumps. Finally a trump to dummy to extract the remaining trumps and ten vulnerable tricks were hers. Our teammates played a modest partscore, and ten IMP just blew out of the fenêtre.
We quickly wake up from our dreams of making day two when we sit down with Drew and Michael. The Russians wrecked havoc. Not a single bad board in sight. They bid, declared and defended flawlessly. Wham! Bam! Spasiba, ma’am!