My partner and I were coming first, very narrowly, heading into the final round. Steady and calm, we said to each other, and we should hopefully get there, and then this happened.
I opened 1D as S, a pass from W and 1NT from partner. Rather than letting us play in our nice 1NT like all the other tables, E doubled with 3 aces and nothing else, as well as only 2 cards in hearts. West duly bid 2H which was passed round, and turned out to have the perfect hand.
Partner led JD which was ducked to my K, and I played ace of clubs, and then considered whether to lead back a diamond. It’s certainly possible that partner’s J was a singleton so I led back a small one, declarer played the 9 which held the trick, and played three rounds of trumps, losing to the Q. It’s too late for us now to find the spade switch that we needed, and declarer made her contract with 4 hearts, 3 diamonds and a spade. We got 9% on the board - so much for steady and calm.
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So there’s 1 board to go, board 2 (conveniently played out of order), we are now 3% below first and after I open 1D as S in the hand below, and W overcalls 2C, partner thinks “we need a top board” so jumps to a bold 3NT. After which I also think “we need a top board” so jump to a bold 6NT. As you can see, it’s lay-down. After the club lead to the ace, we have 13 of the next 12 tricks, and pick up 100% as the only table to bid slam. And that’s why you spend hours putting together a sophisticated bidding system.
* it wasn’t enough, though. We missed out on first place to another pair who had a sit-out in the last round, and jumped up the rankings by cunningly not playing while everyone around them crumbled.