So we are here nearly at Christmas and after what appears to have been another hugely successful Bridge Club Christmas Party and Prizegiving — putting on the party is a ton of hard work and this year the Committee went an extra mile with a ‘theme’ so many congratulations and thanks to all involved! Congratulations also to all the Championship winners and I will put the Honour Roll in the Christmas column!

This week’s hand will have three likely outcomes at the table — a weak player will go down, but go down late — a strongish player will go down but a bit earlier — and the very strong player will …. succeed!

Dealer South E/W Vulnerable

North

? A5

? KJ94

? 6

? A109652

West East

? 4 ? J1092

? 732 ? 6

? QJ9753 ? AK108

? Q87 ? KJ43

South

? KQ8763

? AQ1085

? 42

? None

The Bidding

West North East South

1S

Pass 2C Pass 2H

Pass 4D Pass 5C

6S Pass Pass Pass

North’s 4D bid was a splinter in support of Hearts, South’s 5 Clubs was a cue bid and North then bashed the slam!

West led the Diamond Queen and then another Diamond.

WEAK PLAYER

Ruffs the Diamond, draws three rounds of trumps, plays Spades and when they do not break goes down one.

STRONGISH PLAYER

Ruffs the Diamond, draws only two rounds of trumps and tests the Spades — if both opponents follow to two rounds declarer draws the last trump and claims. If Spades are 4-1 and the hand with the singleton also has no trumps the contract would make — on this hand West ruffs the second Spade — down one!

STRONG PLAYER

She sees the option above but decides to give herself one extra chance, setting up the Club suit!

So after ruffing the Diamond she cashes the Club Ace and ruffs a Club high. After crossing to dummy with the nine of trumps she ruffed another Club high … when both opponents follow she knows that Clubs are 4-3 and trumps no worse than 3-1 so the rest is easy.

Go to dummy with the Spade Ace, ruff another Club high, draw trumps with the King and Jack in dummy, herself throwing a Spade and now cashes two good clubs throwing spades and the last two spades equals 12 tricks!

If Clubs did not behave declarer could always fall back on the Sspades breaking but the line taken by declarer was the only successful line on this hand!

Into which category did you fall?