We are third of the way through the English Premier League season. The league is divided into three eight-team divisions. The leading two teams in Division One will be invited to represent England in next year’s Camrose Trophy.

By the end of the competition, teams will have played 48 boards against each other team in their division. A complete round robin of seven 16-board matches was played in the first weekend. The same thing will happen over this weekend, and the process will be repeated on the final weekend, in November.

These were the standings in Division 1 after the first weekend:

As usual, we start with a couple of problems. Firstly, with only your side vulnerable, you are South holding:

What action, if any, do you take?

Next, with both sides vulnerable, you are sitting in the West seat with:

What action, if any, do you take?

While you mull those over, we start our coverage in the opening round match between the teams lying in first and third place after the first weekend, BLACK and KNOTTENBELT. And what a thriller it turned out to be. The action began with a slam hand for the N/S pairs on the second board of the day. Curiously the problems the E/W pairs set their opponents were very different at the two tables.

David Gold (left) got things rolling with a typically aggressive pre-emptive opening, and Andrew Black raised the ante still further. Ben Handley-Pritchard’s 4♥ overcall on the North hand then left Maggie Knottenbelt with the first of the problems posed above. The first question is “Are we worth a move?” and, if you answer that question in the affirmative, “What move do we make?”

If South advances with a 5♦ cue-bid, North will bid at least a small slam, and will likely make a grand slam try on the way. When Knottenbelt passed 4♥, the chance was gone.

Handley-Pritchard let the ♦J opening run around to his queen. He then cashed the ♥A, unblocking the jack from dummy, crossed to the ♦A, and took a trump finesse. That was 13 tricks: N/S +710.

Michal Byrne did not open with a pre-empt on the East hand, which left Kieran Dyke to kick things off with a third-seat 1♠. Andrew ‘Tosh’ McIntosh (right) started with a double, and then things took off. Byrne raised to 4♠ and Tom Paske made a value-showing double on the South cards. Science had gone out of the window, and Tosh simply bid what he thought he could make, 6♥.

The spade lead was not unduly testing. Tosh ruffed and laid down the top hearts. When East discarded, he claimed 12 tricks: N/S +1430 and 12 IMPs to BLACK to get the scoreboard ticking.

A couple of boards later, both West players were charged with answering the second of this week’s problems.

Kieran Dyke chose to defend on the West cards. McIntosh won the spade lead, picked up the trumps, discarded his spade loser on dummy’s long diamond winner, and led a club towards the king. With both the ♥K and the ♣A onside, there were 12 tricks. N/S +680.

Andrew Black (left) preferred to declare, and he continued with 4♠ when Handley-Pritchard’s 4♥ was passed around to him. It was not clear to either North or South that the five-level was safe, so they settled for taking whatever penalty was available.

David Gold started well by leading a trump. Maggie Knottenbelt won with the ♠A and could have simplified the defence by switching to a heart, but she returned a second trump.

Black won in hand and played the ♣A followed by a second club. In with the ♣K, Gold had now to decide which red suit to open. With nothing to guide him other than his partner’s heart raise, he opted for the ♥A. Unfortunately for the defence, that was the wrong option, so declarer was able to escape for one down. N/S +200 and 10 IMPs to BLACK.

It was simply a matter of who would open a weak two in hearts at this table. Dyke declined the opportunity to do so in first seat, but Byrne could not resist after two passes. Tom Paske (right) started with a double and then jumped to 4♠ after his partner’s responsive double of Dyke’s gentle heart raise. Dyke opened the ♥A and could have continued safely with a second heart at trick two, but he attacked with a diamond switch. That made life easy for declarer, who won cheaply with the ♦J, drew trumps and eliminated the red suits. When Paske eventually broached clubs, it didn’t matter whether he guessed right or not, as East was endplayed after winning the second round of clubs with the king. N/S +450.

In the replay, Ben Handley-Pritchard rather fell in love with what looks to me like a fairly ordinary flat 11-count. After Black had also not opened the West hand, H-P opened a natural 1♣ and rebid an 11-14 1NT over his partner’s 1♠ response. Maggie Knottenbelt’s jump to 3♠ was alerted as a natural slam try, and H-P cooperated with a diamond cue-bid. When Knottenbelt advanced with 4♥, H-P then decided that his hand had some extra values that he had not already shown and rolled out Blackwood. When his partner showed two keys and the trump queen, he decided that was enough for slam.

The defence tried hard to let the contract through, but they simply had too much stuff. West chose to lead the ♣8, and East put up the king when declarer played low from dummy. Unfortunately for declarer, this only meant she had a third-round club loser rather than one on the second round. The contract eventually drifted two down: N/S -100 and another 11 IMPs to BLACK, who led 33-10 at the midway point of the set.

Knottenbelt mounted a comeback in the second half.

Michael Byrne (left) had a tricky decision after North’s overcall, and his decision to start with a negative double worked out well for his side.

The defence started with four rounds of spades. Byrne cashed three heart winners, noting that North followed all the way. By the time he broached the clubs, it was likely that if anyone was short it would be North, so he started by cashing the ♣K. Down came the queen, and Byrne had ten tricks. A relatively painless E/W +430.

In the same position, David Gold chose to make a natural, non-forcing 2NT bid. Perhaps Andrew Black should simply have raised to 3NT, but he chose to advance with 3♣. With more than half of his hand in hearts, Gold chose to keep options open by bidding his fragment (having previously suggested he did not hold four hearts by his failure to make a negative double at his first turn). Again, Black might have bid 3NT, but he chose to raise hearts. By this time, Gold knew his partner was likely to be 0-4-5-4, so he bid game in the partnership’s only eight-card fit.

The defence began with a low spade to the ace and a switch to the ♦J. The contract can be made either by ruffing two spades in hand or two diamonds in dummy, so perhaps declarer would do best to duck the first diamond. Instead, Black took the ♦A, crossed to dummy in hearts, and played a low club to the nine. When the finesse lost, he was one down. E/W -50 and 10 IMPs to KNOTTENBELT.

BLACK held on to win the match, but only by a score of 34-32. Both teams in this match were assessed slow play penalties, which is why their VP scores do not total 20 for the match.

With eight matches completed, these are the standings:

We will be back soon with the highlights of action from more of Saturday’s matches.