A couple of weeks ago I was telling you about 4 interesting hands in a row and got sidetracked after #2.  Here's #3, but first another sidetrack ...

Jeff and his squad are sitting comfortably in 5th after the first day of the round robin.  There are still 16 other teams to play, so it's early.  Dan Korbel's squad (named in honor of the late, great Mark Molson) is sitting first, followed closely by some old bridge friends from Ottawa, Bill and John Bowman and Steve Brown and the rest of their squad.  Jeff's team narrowly lost their first match to a very strong squad led by Nick L'Ecuyer (Gavin's brother is on the squad, and all members have at least one CNTC title) and then ran off 4 in a row.  Here are the top 10 squads (top 8 is what everyone's shooting for.)

Molson 110
Bowman 108
Todd 102
Dowdall 90
Frukacz 87
Chevalier 85
Bart 83
Thurston 83
Bertrand 80
Jotcham 79

(Ironically, Molson is in first and Tolson is in last place with 25 VP.  Reminds me of an old beer commercial.)  Molson Golson, and now Tolson.

So, continuing the story of the 4 hands in a row.  The first one was 6 Spades redoubled that Jeff played lazily to make only 12 tricks.  The second one was 3 Hearts that we passed out for a poor result.  Here's the 3rd one:

I picked up in 3rd favorable:

43 / T973 / AKQ32 / KQ

Jeff opened 1 Heart in front of me.  As I've mentioned previously, I hate fit bids but Jeff loves them and I've agreed to play them with him.  I looked at this hand and wondered if it qualified.  Are you supposed to make a fit bid with ANY hand limit raise or better that otherwise qualifies?  I guess I'll find out.   I bid 3 Diamonds.

Jeff bid 3 Spades.  I guess I'm supposed to bid 4 Hearts with a minimum limit raise type fit bid, but this hand is too good for that.  For lack of a better idea, I tried 4 Clubs, Jeff took over and bid RKCB, I showed one, and he bid 6 Hearts.

I waited expectantly for the final pass to reveal Jeff's hand to me and was not disappointed.

43 / T973 / AKQ32 / KQ

AQ7 / AQJ64 / 985 / A2

It's a good slam, probably about 90% (double dummy you almost need 5-0 diamonds not to make this.)  Even though both finesses were off, it made easily when diamonds were 3-2.  Nothing spectacular, but I'm always relieved when I trot out a system I don't like and am not particularly well versed in and land on my feet.   +980 was worth a little over 5 IMPs (as I've mentioned before, not much field protection on BBO.)