1st match (Mahaffey, 4th seed): Bill/I were in for the first match and we faced Sam Lev - Jacob Pszczola ("Pepsi") with a chance to avenge last year's 1st round defeat. The first board was a flattish game. I got off to our best lead, but there was no chance to defeat it. I hoped to gain an IMP or 2. Typical team strategy is to play safe for contracts but I'd learned last year in this format that every IMP is important. The 2nd board was a potential swing:

Bill	Pepsi	Me	Lev
1	P	1	P
1N	P	2	P
2	P	2N	P
3N	All pass

This was the full layout:

2 9543 K972 QT98
K854 KQJ 8 K7653	AT3 A6 QJT654 A4
QJ976 T872 A3 J2

Ironically, Bill pulled the wrong card to start the bidding. It worked to our advantage in a sense as Lev-Pepsi could not envision his actual holding. 9 tricks are there on the lie of the cards and Bill managed to win 10 when they tried for the set.

Board 3 also had swing potential when I picked up my hand.
AQJ98752 2 2 J43

Me	Lev	Bill	Pepsi
4	4N	P	5
P	5	P	6
All pass

This was the full layout:

KT AKT863 AKQ98
AQJ98752 2 2 J43	6 974 JT74 KQT98
43 QJ5 653 A7652

I went for maximum pressure with a 4S opener, despite unfavorable vulnerability. Lev-Pepsi had a good auction to slam, but it had suggested the winning defense. Lev had shown a huge red suit hand on the auction but if he held a spade void, I thought he might have tried for 7. It seemed that the A could not cost on lead and might gain. When dummy came down, I quickly tabled a 2nd spade, and the ruff defeated the contract.

The remainder of the match was not exciting. We gave up a couple overtricks, did well to let the opponents play a quiet partscore, and went down in a normal game when 2 finesses failed.
I was confident we were off to a better start than last year (when we got blitzed) and as it turned out we scored a decent sized win. The 2 swing hands went our way. In the first, our teammates provided a tougher defense against 3N and declarer did not find the right sequence of plays to make. In the second, teammates took the low road and stopped at the 5 level. We started with a useful 16.53 VPs.

2nd match (Meltzer - 1st seed) Another rematch though Bill/I sat this match out. I don't know much of what happened here but we lost by a convincing margin. After 2 matches we were a fraction below average at 19.54.

3rd match (Wildavsky - 9th seed). This was one of the teams that underwent some changes from last year. Again, Bill and I sat out. Our team suffered a close loss; our total was now 27.77.

4th match (Fleisher - 5th seed) Another mixture of opponents from last year. We faced a formidable pair in Bjorn Fallenius - Brian Glubok, but I don't believe a length partnership. The first board was a routine game. The 2nd board I faced a defensive problem. Holding: J75 K8 Q982 K974
I had to lead on the this uninformative auction:

With nothing much to go on, I opted to lead a diamond. This was the full layout:

Q93 A76 KT6 8532
J75 K8 Q982 K974	KT62 QJT53 54 T6
A84 942 AJ73 AQJ

Trick 1. W 2. N

Lead 2 2

2nd 6 6

3rd 5 Q

4th 3 K

I found myself on play again at trick 3. I considered ducking the club, but decided that might help untangle entries (not to mention that it could be declarer's 9th trick). I felt a major shift was called for, and settled on the heart suit. Even if declarer had a 2nd stopper (say Jxx in hand), he would not know to win the first heart so I shifted to the K. This was a spectacular success on the actual layout. Declarer could still have succeeded but did not divine the heart position until it was too late. Careful discarding then held declarer to 8 tricks. A hopeful swing. Then the opponents balanced, saving us from a terrible misfit and going down instead. I botched the defense, relaxing mentally when I knew we had them set. It was "only" an extra undertrick but every trick counts here. Then I made a good shift to save an IMP (forcing declarer to play safe for his contract). Board 5 was a lucky slam for the opponents but they stopped in game, playing safe for 11 tricks (we could have taken a 3rd on declarer's safe line). After 5 boards I felt we had a small lead with all plus positions.
Then came this promising collection: AT3 KQ74 AKJ32 2

Our auction was:

Me	Fallenius	Bill	Glubok
1	2	3	P
3	P	4	P
4	P	4	P
4N	P	5	P
6	P	7	all pass

My decision came on the last round of bidding. Bill had denied a spade control but forced game after my 3 response (natural). It seemed very likely Bill had the Q which would make 7 a good contract. We have the ability to ask for 3rd round control with 6. Normally we can distinguish doubletons from Qs, but didn't have room in this auction. I hoped my natural diamond suit he would read by bid asking for the queen. With a stiff diamond and a 5th trump, Bill reasonably bid the grand. Realistically I needed a 5th heart for my action. All was not lost but no realistic line on the actual layout would succeed (it it makeable double dummy). I didn't like my actual line, I emerged with 12 tricks for a disappointing -50. We'd have won IMPs had we stopped in a small slam.
I held another swing hand on the last board: AKQJ982 AQ Q4 T9

I was able to describe my hand fairly well showing a hand with long spades and 9 tricks. Bill had to choose been game in NT and spades and chose NT and I chose to honor that with balanced distribution. On another day, it might have worked, but not today. Both games are beatable, but 4 is much harder to defeat and would likely succeed in practice. We had been dead even going into the last 2 boards. We had a chance to generate swings in our favor, but ultimately they went the other way and we suffered a disappointing and costly loss. We now sat at 30.78; 1 match below average.

5th match (Stauber - 10th seed in group): An extremely flat set of boards; Bill/I sat out this match as well. Our team came up on the short end again in a tight 2-0 match. Our total was now 39.81. We were halfway through our matches, we'd have to improve over the second half if we hoped to advance. To be continued in part 2.