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Another blockbuster Sectional ended at the Bridge Club last Monday and Chairperson Katrina Van Pelt and her team once again put on a great event. To have over 20 tables in some of the Pairs events and 16 Teams on the Sunday is pretty remarkable and the table count of 144 for the week handsomely broke last year’s record of 130, so the big decision to move the event from September to June clearly worked.

Tournament Director Karl Hicks and partnership coordinator John Glynn were also hard at work to help make the event a real success ….well done to all !! Interestingly , 103 Bridge Club members earned masterpoints at the Sectional …great going !

There were three Championship events and two single session events so there are a lot of results and here are the winners :

Royal Gazette / David Ezekiel Bridge Column Pairs

Flight A

Robert Todd-Paul Thompson

Flight B

Mike Tait-Greg Carey

Flight C

Inger Mesna-Lorna Anderson

Gosling’s Swiss Teams

Flight A

Alan Douglas-Bill Tucker-John Burville-David Cordon

Flight B

Mona Marie Gambrill-Julia Beach-Gill Gray-Pat Siddle

Flight C

Kathleen and Geoff Bell-Lorna Anderson- Judy Harte-Lovelace

Tops Stratified Pairs

Flight A

Roman Smolski -Vera Petty

Flight B

Mike Tait Jane Clipper

Flight C

Kathleen and Geoff Bell

Alyce Craft Single– Session Pairs

Flight A

Roman Smolski-Vera Petty

Flight B

Sue and John Hodge

Flight C

Mark Crampton-Martha Ferguson

Maiden Single Session Pairs

Flight A

Harry Kast- Michael Bickley

Flight B

Michael Tait-Jane Clipper

Flight C

Judy Harte-Lovelace-Lorna Anderson

Kitson and Co –Newcomer pairs

Friday

Pat and Barbara Cerra

Monday

Linda Abend Noula Contibas

Roman Smolski and Vera Petty had another good tournament and won the Robert Todd Trophy for the leading masterpoint winners during the event, extending their great run of results at this event. The winner of the junior masterpoint race was Lorna Anderson who also had a great week with good results and is clearly playing well - her prize includes a session with Robert Todd at the next Regional!

In closing on the tournament, I must mention the great efforts of Greg Carey over the years in providing so many new members to the Bridge Club and the Sectional through his lessons and general support ….the table count in 2008 was a mere 97 and I know that a lot of the recent increase is due to his work. Greg soon heads back to Canada, a real shame as I know he will be missed hugely on a personal basis by many, and we wish him all the best in his new adventure and hope we see him back here often !

Bridge is a game that needs constant work ... long absences from the game are difficult to handle not because of diminishing skills but because one loses a sharpness and ‘edge’ when a non-standard play or bid presents itself .

When I played bridge three or four times a week in the 1970s (In London we once played a game that started at 8pm on a Friday night and ended at 2am on Monday morning - 54 hours non-stop!), that edge was there! Nowadays I have to think a bit about decisions which would have been reflex.

I played this hand on Bridge Base online the other day ... I was West and South had opened 1NT (15-17) and North, after Stayman showed no major fit, raised to 3NT.

Board 3. E/W Vul. Dealer South.

S-754

H-Q98

D-KJ109

C-KJ6

S-KQJ10 S-963

H-J107 H-6543

D-Q76 D-54

C-A32 C-10954

S-A82

H-AK2

D-A832

C-Q87

I had an easy spade lead and when dummy hit the table one thing was clear .....partner had no points! Declarer won the second round of spades and played a club to the King and then a club to the queen and my Ace. I now cashed my spades and exited with a heart .

Declarer still only had 8 tricks and having already seen me produce 10 points decided to play my partner for the queen of diamonds and the contract went down one, a good result for us.

So what is the point of this hand and what has it got to do with sharpness and edge? Well, I put the hand away with the nagging feeling that one gets on some hands that we got lucky, and then I realised why.

The hand is an open book as declarer clearly had every missing high card, and after I won the Club Ace declarer either already had 9 tricks if he had a four card club suit OR would need the diamond finesse for the ninth. Walla! I shouldn’t have cashed my last spade, giving declarer the impression that my partner had it and should have just cashed the jack and exited with a heart! Now declarer, thinking my partner had the remaining spade, would “safely” take the diamond finesse through my partner at which stage I would win the diamond queen and proudly produce the 13th spade to set the contract!

All so easy in the post mortem but my enduring thought was that I would have made that play when I was playing a lot ... I think!

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