The Wiltshire representatives in the pachabo cup competition managed the lowest place finish in living memory. The good thing about that is that if one learns from mistakes there were plenty of lessons.

Bidding was not the whole key to the event but I have always held that if you play a convention you should wheel it out at every opportunity. A convention that I would like to recommend is PUD (Pass Until Doubled). On the following hand both partners had opportunity to use this and both decided against. At the type of scoring the loss on the hand (0 points out of 2) also led to a significant loss of aggregate points in the match (0 points out of 4). Playing at best 40% was no way to keep what started as a promising league position.

With NS vulnerable the bidding went:

5D was not a success when the defence found a club and heart crossruff and cut me off from some winners on table. 3 down was -800. The defence cannot cross ruff against 3NT so despite entry problems that would only go 2 down at the most so PUD over 3NT was opportunity 1. 4D would not have been pretty but noone had doubled and –200 would have won the hand. 5C wasn’t doubled when it came to north so that was the third and last opportunity for the convention.

Learn from my mistakes, if you have a convention wheel it out; if you don't have PUD put it in your bag now.

Roy France

For the mean-spirited the results are linked here - Ed