The Mixed Pairs will have concluded last night at the Bermuda Bridge Club and the results will be in next week’s column.

After the first session it is still wide open with the leaders Janice Trott and Ernest Paynter on 61.36 per cent, Jane Smith and Alan Douglas on 60.04 per cent and Julia Lunn and David Cordon on 57.39 per cent.

There is then a clutch of pairs behind these three and 11th place has 53.41 per cent so any of this first group can win.

Smith-Douglas were one of the fancied pairs going into the event and their second place position must make them the bookies favourite for the event but they still have lots of work to do.

Harry Kast was playing in the event and pointed out the interesting Board Ten which I found interesting mainly for the ‘par result’ posted by Deep Finesse on the hand records.

I actually quite like Deep Finesse as the trick count sometimes poses a puzzle, but the danger with Deep Finesse is that many of the users do not understand how it works, which is simple.

Simply, Deep Finesse ‘peeks’ at all four hands and then decides on how many tricks can be made by Declarer or defence.

It does not make ‘best plays’ but simply makes the winning play every time because it sees all 52 cards.

An example: your LHO opens Four Hearts and you end up playing in Four Spades — LHO leads a small heart (he has shown eight of them) and this is the layout of the Heart suit:

North AQ; East K; South 102; West J9876543

You would reasonably play the Queen from dummy based both on the odds and on the bidding and you would lose to the singleton King. Not Deep Finesse!

Having looked at the hands DF would go up with the Ace and drop the singleton King and the hand record would show one more trick available for N/S than any reasonable player would make.

Which brings us to Board Ten.

Board Ten — All Vulnerable — Dealer East

North S532; HJ102; DA73; CJ982

East SA4; H987643; DKQJ84; C None

South SJ98; HAQ; D95; CAK10854

West SKQ1076; HK5; D1062; CQ73

Many East’s played in four Hearts and made it. South usually led a Club which East ruffed to play a Heart and now the contract is unbeatable. Yet on the hand record Deep Finesse said that the maximum tricks East West should make is Nine!

And DF is right. South, in DF’s world, would lead the Nine of Diamonds instead of one of his top Clubs and North, continuing the brilliance, would duck this (actually a good expert play).

Now when East leads a Heart South hops up with the Ace, plays another Diamond and gets a ruff and North still has a Heart trick — down one!

Interestingly, DF also says that if West was playing 4H the result would be the same. In this case North would make the extra genius opening lead of a low Diamond! Now the contract would be defeated as before.

There you have it! So, when you are next in the post mortem and partner looks to have made too few tricks compared to DF remember that partner does not get to see all four hands. Deep Finesse is a lot of fun as long as you do not take it too seriously and understand just how it works.

Mixed Pairs results next week! Also, non-LM pairs (0-299) will take place on the 23rd and 30th.