This is our final visit to the 2023 English Premier League season. At the end of today’s play, teams will have played three 16-board matches against each other team in their division.

With just two matches remaining, these were the standings in Division 1:

As usual, we start with some problems. Firstly, with neither side vulnerable, you are South holding:

What action, if any, do you take?

Next, with only your side vulnerable, you are sitting in the North seat with:

What action, if any, do you take?

Finally, with only your opponents vulnerable, you hold as East:

What action, if any, do you take?

What if South had opened 3♠ and partner had doubled?

The VuGraph match for Round 20 featured HINDEN and KNOTTENBELT. Nearing the end of a low-scoring match, both South players had to answer a variation on the first of the problems above.

Graham Osbourne’s 3♣ bid was clearly not forcing for this pair. Having nothing more than she had already shown with her reverse, Frances Hinden had no reason to bid again. West led a top diamond and switched to a spade at trick two. With the ♦J providing a discard for declarer’s second spade anyway, that made no difference. With the heart finesse working, declarer always had eleven tricks. N/S +150.

Without East’s diamond raise, South’s 2♥ was a standard reverse. I would guess that this pair play some form of Blackout (either 2♠ or 2NT as a Lebensohl-type bid to show a weak hand) and thus 3♣ was game forcing. Michael Byrne (left) moved forward with 3NT, leaving Kieren Dyke to decide which game to play. With the heart finesse onside, both are destined to make. N/S +400 and 6 IMPs to KNOTTENBELT.

KNOTTENBELT won a match with no double-digit swings by a score of 29-12, almost halving the gap between these two teams.

The final VuGraph match featured DE BOTTON and SANDFIA. (Quite why the meeting of the two leading teams was not the VuGraph match says something about the organization at an event where it had even proved too difficult even to put the correct players’ names into the VuGraph records.)

There was plenty of testosterone on display on this early deal…

The auction began normally enough. Espen Erichsen’s 1NT rebid left Thor Erik Hoftaniska with the second of this week’s problems. I know the Norwegian is a very aggressive bidder. However, a void in partner’s suit hardly improves the hand, and nor does opener’s 1♣ bid sitting over your A-Q. Quite what made him think that this North hand justified a jump to 4♠ is beyond this humble scribe to explain.

Sarah Bell found the defence to defeat 4♠, leading the ♥K and continuing the suit when declarer ducked at trick one. Declarer dropped one more trick in the play, and so finished two down. N/S -200.

Artur Malinowski did not open the East hand, but he couldn’t resist making a takeout double once the opponents had bid two suits. David Bakhshi (right) must have loved that! He was left to choose between bidding 2♣ on two low or 2♥ on two low. The best that can be said is that he chose not to bid 2♦ (is that natural here?) Had he done so, that probably would have started the opponents doubling.

2♣ was not the best of contracts, but at least declarer was only playing to decide how many 50s he would lose. The answer was four: N/S +200 and 9 IMPs to SANDFIA.

Then the East players were confronted with the two versions of the last of the problems from the top of this article…

What a nasty bidding problem Sarah Bell was left with. She was no doubt grateful to have a natural 2NT bid available although, as it happens, a scrambling 2NT would have gotten the partnership to 3♣, which is perhaps a more comfortable spot.

The defence started with a spade to the ace and a spade back, declarer winning the third round. Bell then knocked out the ♥A, won the club switch with the ace, and cashed her red-suit winners. Perhaps it’s me that cannot count, but I make that eight tricks. However, declarer apparently claimed seven, so the score was officially recorded as N/S +50.

Stefano Tommasini (left) was not constrained by the vulnerability, and he braved the three-level with his third-seat opening bid. That put East in an even tougher spot, and I suspect that a fair number of experts on a bidding panel would duplicate Artur Malinowski’s pass of his partner’s double. After all, what else is there? Is 3NT really that enticing?

There was one chance for the defence, but it was a very tough one. Declarer has to lose two diamonds, one club and one spade, so he needs to score a club ruff in dummy. Bakhshi led the ♦Q at trick one, Malinowski following with the ♦2 (upside down attitude, perhaps?) To beat the contract, Bakhshi has to continue with his low diamond, putting Malinowski in with the ♦J to play a trump. He can then play a second trump when he regains the lead with the ♣A, and West will then eventually score the ♣Q as the setting trick. Very difficult!

When Bakhshi continued with a second high diamonds at trick two, that was the end of the defence. Tommasini ruffed the third round of diamonds, crossed to the ♥A, and led a club, putting up the king when East followed low. He was now able to engineer a club ruff in dummy for his ninth trick. N/S +730 and 12 IMPs to SANDFIA.

Pairs who play Strong Club systems are used to opponents bidding over their strong opening on all sorts of tram tickets. Both pairs in this match had to handle disruption of their auction after a strong/artificial 2♣ opening, which happens far less often.

Bakhshi intervened with 2NT showing minors over Tommasini’s 2♣ opening. Ben Norton (right) showed some values with a double, and Tommasini bid his suit. Norton agreed spades with a 4♦ cue-bid, and then retreated to 4♠ at his next turn. Tommasini decided that he did not have anything significant to spare having already opened 2♣, so that was enough for him.

As expected on the auction, the diamonds finesse worked, but there were two unavoidable heart losers. N/S +650.

Mike Bell overcalled in diamonds here, and Sarah Bell upped the ante with a raise to the three-level. Leading three rounds of spades against 3♦-doubled might have produced an 800 penalty, but Erichsen was never likely to choose defence on this hand. The auction essentially followed the same path as the first table, but Erichsen thought he was still worth another try after Hoftaniska’s 4♠, and he advanced with Blackwood. When Hoftaniska confirmed possession of the missing ace, Erichsen committed to slam. The deficit in the heart suit became apparent only on the appearance of dummy. N/S -100 and another 13 IMPs to SANDFIA.

SANDFIA won the match 46-11, which carried them to a third-place finish. In the key match between the leaders, BLACK hammered HINDEN 51-4 to seal the victory.

The final standings looked like this:

Congratulations to the BLACK team, (l-r:  Peter Crouch, Simon Cope, Andrew Black, David Gold, Andrew McIntosh and Tom Paske).