The BBOers July Festival kicked off yesterday, featuring a variety of exciting events. One of the highlights, the Stars & Platinum Robot Individual, is now entering its second day of competition. Let's take a look at the current standings after the conclusion of day 1.

After the first day, Jim Streisand (strei1) from Wayland, MA, took the lead with an impressive score of 68.31%. Hot on his heels is Ishmael Del'monte (Ishd) from Baton Rouge, LA, holding the second spot with a score of 67.02%. Richard Aronson (rfaronson) from Camarillo, CA, is also putting up a great performance, currently in third place with a score of 64.74%. Given the tournament is ongoing, we can certainly expect some changes in the leaderboard.

Play the board of the day:

West led with a Heart, which East won with the ♥A. East then proceeded to play the ♣A and followed it up with another Heart, which you successfully won in your hand. Now, how would you like to proceed?

This board is from Jim Streisand's gameplay on Day 1 of the festival. The contract of 4♥x appears challenging to make, but let's see the ways to minimize your losses. Take a look at how Jim played this board:

After winning the Heart in hand, Jim tried to find tricks in Spades. He played a Spade to the King and then another Spade to the ♠9, losing two Spades to West. However, he still managed to win 2 Spade tricks. When West returned a Diamond, Jim won it with the Ace. He then did the cross-ruff between Diamonds and Clubs. Jim didn't start with the cross-ruff right away because he needed to find more tricks. If he had started with the cross-ruff, it would have been difficult to find tricks in Spades later because he might not have had an entry to play the last winning Spade trick.

Result on Day 1