Our first Swiss Pairs for 2018 on 30 January was a great success and saw Nerida Gillies and Hans van Weeren triumph (with a box of Swiss chocolates) ahead of Peter Clarke and Jim Rothwell. The turn-out was excellent with 22 pairs playing 4 rounds of 6 boards.
Normally the Swiss Pairs, convened by Annegrete Kolding, will be timed for the fourth Tuesday evening on each month with the next on 27 February (but check the event calendar for exceptions). As an innovation for 2018 we trialed seeding for the first round of the four round event. In future to save time we will probably make this more self-seeding when our pre-session expert presenter is also using the director's computer.
In last night's free pre-session talk, our guest expert, experienced teacher and NSW representative player, Anita Curtis, spoke on finding "Winning Leads", touching on topics such as when to be active in defense, and when to be passive , and what to avoid when leading against NT and suit contracts. One of the points she made that made me reflect seriously was not to lead your singleton in a suit contract, if your trumps are natural winners, such as QJx.
