The pendulum – Summer National Pairs – Session 3

Opponents pushed their way to 3NT, Jaggy did well to avoid the diamond lead and found a heart.

The contract went one down in due course.

I expected to get a better than average score on this one. With only 8 hcp, I expected atleast half the field will stay in 1NT. Wrong. Almost everyone was in 3NT, and some misplayed the hand to go 2 down.

This was worth only 42%. This theme will repeat often over the next few boards – you beat par, and yet you get a below average score. And that, eventually turned out to be our undoing, the field scores were nowhere around expected scores.

Opponents got into another pushy game onto the next board, which was always making. But this time half the field stayed out of game. 29%

We had a bye in the next two boards – Kista and Ravi Goenka had elected not to play the last set.

I don’t know the reason, but am of the opinion that the federation ought to look into it. Not completing an event is certainly not fair to the opposition.

We were awarded 60% on these two boards, but Rana – Swarnendu, and Keyzad – Tewari – both pairs got 90%+ in these two boards. And at the end of these two boards, Rana and Swarnendu were now in the lead – with 4 boards to go.