Bridge Blog 1188: Is down one really good bridge?

Although I didn't say it, that's what I was wondering after a while Monday afternoon at the Bridge Centre of Niagara in St. Catharines, Ont. Partner Selina Volpatti and I played what seemed like an extraordinary number of contracts that fell one trick short. In truth, there were only (only?) eight out of 27. 

Selina played six of them. Her first successful down-one effort was a 4 Heart contract on the second hand of the day and it was a good one. Top board. East-West can make 5 Spades and seven of them did. 

Then, in the final round, Selina went down one on a 4 Diamond bid when the opponents routinely make 4 Hearts with an overtrick. That one was good for 7 out of 8 match points. 

But the rest of our down-ones were duds. Two were middle boards, the others were bottoms or next to bottoms. 

So back to our original question: Is down one good bridge? Not for me and Selina on Monday. Our down-ones delivered only 24 out of a possible 64 match points. Had we broken even, 50-50, in the down-ones, we would have been first North-South. As it was, we finished second with 57.64%, winning 1.69 master points.