"That dbl (double) on Board 4 may have put us over the top," partner Selina Volpatti texted me after our first place showing Friday at the Niagara on the Lake Duplicate Bridge Club. "... that gave us the point over the Tremblays."
It's a great day whenever we beat Claude and Muriel Tremblay, the perennial top pair at the club. On this occasion, they were second. We outdistanced them in match points, 74.18 to 71.45. Translated into percentages, that's 61.82% to 59.54%.
True, Selina's double on Board 4, our last deal of the day, earned us one match point more than the Tremblays, who had the second-best score on that hand, where East-West took only six tricks at 3 Hearts. Same thing happened at the Tremblays' table, but they didn't double. As it turns out, though, that only gave us a break-even against Claude and Muriel in that round. Board 4 was a feel-good finale, the frosting on the cake. We already had piled up our advantage elsewhere.
It wasn't in the first round, where we played Boards 5 through 8. The Tremblays roared to a four match-point lead there, even though we were second-best on each hand.
The crucial difference came during the two rounds that followed, Boards 10 to 14, where we grabbed 10.5 more match points than they did. We won No. 10 on defense, holding a 2 Spade contract by East-West to one fewer overtrick than they did. No. 11 found me down one at 3 Spades, for a score of minus 50, while they let East-West play and make 3 Diamonds for minus 110. On No. 13, the opponents helped us out. East went to 4 Spades with a seven-card trump fit, which we set by one trick, while Claude and Muriel saw West play it at a much more solid 3 Hearts, where they had a 10-card fit and made an overtrick.
No. 14 was a top board for us, again thanks to our opponents. They passed after Selina boldly bid it up to 3 Spades. She made an overtrick, despite our deficiency in high card points (she had 14, I had just two Jacks). At Claude and Muriel's table, West took the bid at 3 No Trump and took an overtrick.
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