August 2009. We're ready for the World Team Championships in São Paulo, Brazil, starting at the end of the month. This whole year bridge has been going extremely well. I played well, my partner Bas Drijver played excellently and together we have been winning very often.
In short, our team is going to bring the world title to the Netherlands!

October 2009, one month later. The disappointment is still very much present. It hurts to realise that I have played my worst tournament of the passed year, that I have squandered the chances for both the team and myself. Looking back, I feel tears coming to my eyes.
How could I play this badly? How could I disappoint both myself and Netherlands to such an extent? I'd prefer not to think back, but all right, I will give an example.

¹ Precision Club: 16⁺, almost any distribution, forcing
² Against a Precision 1♣ opening it is best to overcall lightly, even extremely lightly, especially at favourable vulnerability

The next thing I knew was that I had tabled the ♥3, a passive lead costing nothing... except the contract.

		♠	K Q J
		♥	J 10 7
		♦	8 6
		♣	A K Q J 6
♠	10 6 3 2			♠	8 7 5 4
♥	A 6 4 3 2			♥	9
♦	Q 4			♦	K 7 5 3 2
♣	7 2			♣	10 8 5
		♠	A 9
		♥	K Q 8 5
		♦	A J 10 9
		♣	9 4 3

But the fact could not be ignored: I hadn't led partner's suit...
A diamond lead would have taken us to the semi-final.

The bad news is that I can easily present eight more games in which I personally made our place in the semi-final an illusion.
So there it is: the next column will be about the Dutch league once more, perhaps things will be better there. Brazil, São Paulo, these names were in capitals in my agenda - an agenda I have subsequently torn to pieces.