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Humble Cup Final           1 April 2006

The final was played over 40 boards between Derek Oram (Celia Oram, Sally Bennett, John Cuthbert) and Dave Dickson (Barbara Kime, Malcolm Harris, Maria Budd, Tony Judge, Paul Nesbitt). Oram emerged the winners by 24 IMPs and earned the right to represent Herts in the Pachabo in June.

An excellent second set of +36 IMPs included the following hand well bid by Sally and John to 7♣ on a combined 33 count. It generated a useful swing against the small slam bid in the other room.

John’s 2© bid, by agreement, showed either a strong one-suited hand or a good suit (with top honours) and primary support for partner’s suit. The subsequent 3¨ and 4ª cue bids, reinforced by the thoughtful 4♣ bid, confirmed the latter hand type. Sally’s 3♣, again by agreement, denied two of the top 3 honours in any suit outside of clubs. As she hadn’t rebid 2NT showing a more balanced hand, John could be confident of at least six clubs in the South hand. Sally was able to show her spade values with 3NT, and cue bid the ¨K with 4¨. John checked on the ♣KQ with 5NT and the laydown grand was reached.

One amusing incident happened when Malcolm Harris and Dave Dickson were playing against Derek and Celia Oram. Malcolm had spent some time (for him) declaring a tricky contract. When trick 11 was reached he realised that he had 4 cards left and dummy only had 2. After hurried counting of cards, Derek and Celia rather embarrassedly admitted to having also started with 12 and 14 cards respectively. Not one of the four Herts ‘A’ team players had noticed - DOH!!

The match was played in a very friendly and sociable but competitive spirit throughout. Hands were generally interesting and offered many opportunities for swings. Many thanks to Sally for hosting the match which was enjoyed by all.