This was the auction at our table:

Me	LHO	Bill	RHO
1(1)	P	1(2)	P
2(3)	P	2N(4)	P
3(5)	P	4	P
4	P	4	P
5	P	5	P
6	All pass

The auction needs some explanation. (1) Our 1C is multiple hand types, this one is a good hand with a long suit (2) Natural and positive (3) Clarifying hand type, shows 6+ diamonds and 15+ points (4) Shows hearts (not necessarily 5) but more importantly shows fewer than 2 diamonds (5) A tough decision. The diamond suit is certainly rebiddable but I chose an optimistic 3H call. We needed to generate some IMPs and this looked like a good opportunity. A series of cuebids followed and we wound up in slam. The opening lead is the 5 and dummy tabled: AKJ62 98632 4 AK

A heart honor would have been nice. Looks like we'll need some moderate fortune in trumps but slam has play. I need to attack trumps and hope for the best. Win the club and lead a heart to the T (losing). RHO started with Qx so it was a simple matter to win the club return and play another trump capturing the queen. Can't play a 3rd trump just yet, I need an entry to the diamonds. DA and a then ruff a diamond (both follow). Trump to hand pulling the last trump and then claim with the established diamonds. A nice result and a likely gain. Momentum plays a big role in this game, and now it looked to be on our side. I faced a decision in a competitive auction later in the match. I guessed to be 3N with a singleton king in LHO's suit as our best hope of making game. It worked out serendipitously as 3N cannot be made from Bill's side though he also had a stopper. The normal lead, when played from my side, allowed 3N to make. Whether we won or lost this match, we had built some needed confidence with a good set.

As it turned out, the slam was not a swing. Our opponents reached 6S and were very fortunate to find SQxx onside (about an 18% chance) and pushed the board. The 3N hand was a big swing and teammates had a couple good results to generate a couple smaller swings our way. We had our first win.

Our 4th match had a few noteworthy hands. Here was the first. I held: JT632 J 7 KJ9643

Bill	RHO	Me	LHO
1N	P	2(transfer)	X
2	P	?

The double of 2H actually helped immensely. Bill's 2S bid promised at least 3 card support, so I know we have a fit. Without the X, I would have had an awkward 2nd bid. Knowing we have a fit makes this hand very valuable. At this form of scoring, there is a premium for bidding games, so I blasted 4S. RHO made a rash double. Bill had a great hand: Q875 A754 AQJ Q8 There were no real difficulties in the play, Bill losing the obvious 3 tricks for +590

There was more action on this hand: A4 J AKQ9 AQJT32

Me	LHO	Bill	RHO
1(1)	3	P	4
?

(1) 1D is another ambiguous bid. Usually it's a balanced 12-14. We also include big, unbalanced hands, as here. Bill will assume I have a weak NT so he can still have some values for his pass.

It's conceivable I could make slam by myself, but I settled for a simple 5 and I was pleased to hear Bill raise. A good rule of thumb when the opponents preempt like this: finding the right strain (i.e. which suit) is often more important than getting to the exact right level. In other words, if you can make a slam in clubs. In a highly competitive auction, you will usually get a good result even if you just reach game in clubs. Thus even if we could make 7, I thought getting to 6 would be a good result. Bill had another great hand for me:

65 AT7 J72 97654

There was nothing to the play. The singleton club king was onside and all 13 tricks came in.

We had another good set. The opponents reached with a wild 3N and were defeated 4 vulnerable tricks in addition to the above two boards. Unless the opponents bid 7C on the hand above, I felt we'd won. As it turned out, the slam was a push, and we managed a small win. Our record was now even, though we were still a little below average victory point wise. The first session was over and it was time for lunch. We'd played 28 boards in the first session, and we had 28 boards scheduled in the afternoon. We were at a disadvantage having just a four-man team, there would be no breaks. Since there were 11 teams in each group, 1 team would have a bye each round. Unfortunately, our bye would not be until the 2nd day (3rd of 3 sessions).

Matches 5 and 6 were among the 2 least eventful of the tourney. We had some bad luck in match 5, reaching a good game that went down on a ruff. Bill had a defensive problem on another hand. He was unable to find an unlikely shift against 3N and game made. Our teammates played from the other side, the natural lead from my side was fatal. Those two swings results in a small loss. Had our game made, we'd have turned that result around. The 6th match was our closest by far. 6 of the 7 contracts were identical, resulting in a grand total of 1 IMP. The 7th was nearly identical as our opponents played 4S while teammates played 3S. Both sides took 9 tricks (whew) and we eked out a small win.

That evened our record at 3-3 but victory points are what mattered and we were still a little below average. We were more than halfway through the 1st round robin, and the standings started to have significance. We were nowhere near the leaders, but were in a bunch of teams near the qualifying cutoff. This was going to go down to the wire. (round robin 1 diary completed in part 3)