I always find it impossible to sleep when I’ve played poorly, and last night just one sleeping pill was never going to be enough. Alas, I needed two to stop me agonising over my many mistakes during the weekend’s Lady Milne trials (for the women’s home internationals). Sally Brock and I didn’t manage to qualify, which,  given Sally’s brilliance, tells you just how badly I played. However, let me describe one interesting hand for which Sally insists on taking half the blame, even though I propelled us to the wrong contract:

(3♣ = 5 card stayman; 3♠ = agrees hearts; 4NT = RKCB). Sally had limited her hand by opening 2NT, so it was crazy of me to bid the grand, despite her 5NT bid confirming we held all the key cards. North led a club round to Sally’s ♣A. The diamond finesse needs to work — that’s still only 12 tricks unless North has ♦Qxx. But North can be squeezed if she holds 4+ spades and 4+ diamonds. Sally drew four trumps and cashed ♦A and ♠AQ leaving: ♥8 ♦5 ♣1083 opposite ♠K6 ♦KJ10.  On the last trump, North threw a spade and Sally had to guess whether she had come down to ♠J ♦Qxx, or ♠Jx ♦Qx. Sally guessed the former, and discarded a diamond from dummy. She took the diamond finesse but had to concede a spade to North at the end. It was only over dinner that she saw a better line: cash ♥AK, and on seeing South show out, cash ♠AQ, play a trump to dummy, cash the ♠K, return to hand with the ♦A and now there’s no need to guess: North is subjected to a ‘show up’ squeeze. Wish that had been my only misdemeanour!