By the time this appears the Bermuda Sectional will have started and players will be into the second day of competition — full results next week.

As a tune-up, last week saw the 2015 Worldwide Simultaneous Pairs take place and there was great success for Bermuda players!

Finishing first in Bermuda and a remarkable 13th out of the 3,867 pairs that took part in the Saturday game were the Bermuda pair of Annalies Scheland and Betty Woolf, and not far behind in 17th place was Jean Johnson from Bermuda who partnered Matthew Reese at Hazel’s Bridge Club in Toronto — two superb results, so well done ladies!

The results at each Club were matchpointed across the field so top on a board will have been, presumably, about 1,930! The worldwide winners with an astounding score of 78.44 per cent were Giorgos Dimitrakopoulos and Stathis Akrivos from Athens, Greece — the last-placed pair, playing in a game in Italy, scored an equally astounding 20.03 per cent! I honestly did not think that was possible even by passing throughout and just following suit, but I have been proved wrong! Anyway, well done Annalies, Betty and Jean!

Also good news on another event. The first Youth Bridge Event took place at the club on Thursday, June 4. Twelve Saltus students participated, with Peter Donnellan as the director. There was a tie for first place, and the winners were Gianluca Cacace with Tyler Irby and Blair Blakeney with Kaya Vogler — congratulations to the winners and hopefully this will be the start of something really big at the Club!

I love this week’s hand as it is not difficult but will catch out so many players!

Dealer North N/S Vulnerable

North

S None

H A63

D AQ10965

C KQ32

West

S AQ763

H Q72

D K

C J1076

East

S 10982

H J1094

D J43

C 84

South

S KJ54

H K85

D 872

C A95

The bidding was over pretty quickly. North opened 1 Diamond, South bid 1 Spade, North bid 3 Diamonds and South bid 3 No Trump.

West led a Spade despite South’s bid which should have set the alarm bells ringing for South, but clearly didn’t!

South won East’s 8 with the Jack and led a Diamond and was thrilled to see the King pop up!

Declarer grabbed the Ace, cashed the Queen and played a third Diamond — curtains!

East won and led the Spade 10 and very soon declarer was down one!

Bad luck? No — bad play! Declarer has a simple solution to this hand — let the King of Diamonds hold!

West is now helpless — he cannot beat the hand and if he fails to cash the Spade Ace to hold declarer to 11 tricks, and tries to get partner in with a Club, this happens after declarer has cashed his Diamonds:

North

S None

H A6

D

S KQ32

West

S AQ

H

D

C J1076

East

S

H J1094

D

C 84

South

S K

H K8

D

C A95

Now Ace of Hearts and King of Hearts — West has to part with either the Ace of Spades or a Club, both fatal, 12 tricks for declarer! Cruel game!