To be honest, I am hesitant to award HotW today as I am still trying to sort out what exactly happened with the movement last night and I am scared to award it to the wrong pair! But here goes…
With no slams to look at, I didn’t get much further than Board 1 looking for something interesting. With both sides holding strong minor suits and nothing overwhelming in the majors, this could go either way. NS can make a nice game in clubs but not, as two pairs found to their cost, a slam – there are two losers in the red suits. EW cannot make a game in diamonds but should be thinking about a sacrifice. Two pairs took this route, both getting doubled in 5D. It needs accurate defence to hold this to 8 tricks. Given time, the spades, which consist of a useful JT987xx, can be set up to provide two discards and get rid of a heart loser, making 9 tricks. Sadly, with not many NS making 5C this did not produce as good a score as it might. However, one NS pair made no mistake in defence (or EW did not set up the spades, I can’t tell!) and the extra heart loser proved costly, making the penalty 500 and giving NS the top. So unusually this week, the HotW is for defence and goes to Brenda and Stephen. Well done!