Adam and I ended up a board out of 1st in our section, but nowhere in the overalls.  We did well against the Grand Life Master (Mildred Breed) and Platinum Life Master (George Pisk) in the room, not dropping a board to either of them (17/24 vs Mildred and 19/24 vs George, even though Adam went down in a very makeable 2 Spades against Mildred) but ironically lost the round against my friend Joanie Gates, an enthusiastic beginner.  That's matchpoints for you.

Adam was the star of the show in the last round, making 2 back-to-back no play games (both down 2 against perfect defense) against George Pisk and his partner (who topped the field at 60% in spite of their less than stellar round against us.)  Then came the last board of the afternoon, which was also an adventure:

I picked up in 3rd, all white:

A85 / KT86 / 32 / KJ42

To me, this is a normal 1 Heart bid.  Jeff introduced me to the concept of frequently opening 4 card majors in 3rd, and while I resisted it initially, I have become a huge proponent of the tactic.  I can pass a spade or 1NT, if pard bids drury I play 2 Hearts, on a really bad day, pard takes the push to 3 hearts in an 8 card fit, that's the worst case scenario.  On the plus side, I get to preempt the opps out of diamonds, maybe steal the hand.

Oh wait, one other bad thing can happen.

George went into the tank and played with the bidding box and bid 1NT.  Adam smashed it.  Righty passed.  I prayed that Adam wasn't hanging me (I have 11, if he has 10 we're fine) and passed.  George decided to run to 2 Clubs, passed around to me.  With my trumps in the slot and the opps in a matchpoint-poor sounding spot, I passed.

The good news is that we had chased the opponents from a cold contract to a beatable contract.  The bad news is that we failed to beat it.

Adam led the heart Queen and dummy tracked:

KJ4 / 973 / Q9874 / 63

George won his ace and hooked the spade jack into my ace.

What now?

Seemed normal to cash the king of hearts and pin dummy's nine of hearts with the ten.  George covered, Adam ruffed, and returned the queen of spades.

George won in dummy, led a diamond to the ace, and somewhat surprisingly led his last heart, ruffed by Adam, and pitched the last spade from the board.

Now Adam fell from grace and tried to cash the king of diamonds.  George, who started with stiff Ace (hence the tank,) ruffed, ruffed a spade, cashed the queen of diamonds (I ruffed helplessly with the deuce from KJ42) and overruffed me, then led his last spade, ruffed by Adam.

I did the best I could and overruffed and played a club, but George took the finesse and was home.

George's hand:

9732 / AJ42 / A / AQT9

Nicely played, but I was happy to escape with 62.5% of the matchpoints on the board instead of our likely result in 1NT doubled.