Seppo Sauvola (Zebutin), from Finland, and I (mseligman) have been playing BBO speedball together for a couple of months. He had never been in America, so I invited him to partner me at the Lancaster (Manheim) Regional, October 29 to November 3, 2019 to make his American debut.

We had a very good tournament, winning six events (the barometer pairs with a 78.9% final session, one flight A KO, 3 evening events, and the evening overall). We were second in another KO, and 4th in the final Swiss. We finished first overall for the tournament winning 118 ACBL masterpoints. (Followed by Hurd, Grue, Moss, and Miniter.)

A fine debut for Zebutin. Here is one of the hands from the KO:

It was apparent to me that we were in the slam range with 6 runnable spades likely, but with no fit. So I decided that six spades would play better than 6 No Trump, since the auction suggested that partner only had a singleton heart.

Zebutin got a low club lead, played the queen and lost to the king. Small club back, 9, ten. Back to hand with a low diamond to the King. Drawing trumps, discarding 2 hearts and 2 clubs from dummy. Heart finesse to the queen, heart Ace, discarding a club. Low heart, ruffed, king not falling. Then Zebutin played the last spade, squeezing East in three suits.

Six spades making versus Six No Trump at the other table, down.