Slam dunk

Day 4 began in a singularly unpromising way, but finished on a high note, as you will see.  BTW, let me take a moment away from my team to draw your attention to the Canadian Senior team, who are currently in first place.  Fred Hoffer and Don Piafsky are the star performers, and are leading the individual standings.

Our first match was against Brazil, and it was not a day for bidders.  Game after game fell apart amidst a succession of foul distributions.  Meanwhile, the opponents got to a game requiring a tripleton AKQ in a side suit — and it was there.  Yes, I know, I’m whining again…

After that, we needed more than a strong performance against England, who were one of the pre-tournament favourites to qualify.  I’m proud to say that the team rose to the occasion.  This time, it was plaeasure watching the results come in – two slam swings in the first three boards staked us to a quick 27 IMP lead, and we never relinquished it.  In the end, Linda and Pamela bid three slams that were missed by their English counterparts, and made a doubled partscore.  In fact, each of the slams was missed by a substantial portion of the field in all three events, and while I haven’t checked this out, I suspect that very few pairs (if any) bid all three.  So a much-needed 25 VPs.  After this, all three pairs wanted to play the third set, but sanity prevailed: Linda was dispatched to bed with a heavy cold, to rest up for tomorrow’s exertions.

Everyone was up for the last match, and both pairs played solidly to score a comfortable win over Egypt. We’re now right back in the hunt, only 5 VP’s out of a playoff spot with 9 matches still to play.  We have tough teams left in our schedule, but also several who are contending with us, so our fate is in our own hands.  If we can beat them, we’ll be there; if we can’t, we won’t deserve to be.

If you want to know more about the slam hands, check Linda’s blog.  BTW, for those who don’t know this, the Swan Games site carries detailed board by board results from each match as they come in, and is a great place to look at what is going on here in detail: www.swangames.com

The very last board from the third match yesterday was one that caught my eye:

	♠ K Q 10 9 7 2
	♥ Q 7 5 2
	♦ 4
	♣ K 4
♠ —		♠ 8
♥ A 9 8 3		♥ K J 10 6 4
♦ A Q 10 6 5 2		♦ K 8 3
♣ 10 6 5		♣ Q 8 3 2
	♠ A J 6 5 4 3
	♥ —
	♦ J 9 7
	♣ A J 9 7

As you can imagine, this particular deal was responsible for some crazy results around the room, including a double slam swing in one match.  Francine and Julie had doubled their opponents in 5♠ , which made with an uptrick — but it turned out to be an unintentional Stripe-tailed ape double!  Sylvia and Isabelle were the only pair in the VC to bid the cold 6♠ , and we actually gained IMPs on the board!