I won’t start the column again by saying that there is nothing much going on at the Club in the summer….but there really isn’t !!

It was nice to see Pamela Willcocks’s letter to the Editor a few weeks ago after the sad news that Omar Sharif had passed away, in which she recalls her father Peter playing on a Bermuda team including Mal Martin, whom I partnered for a while, Tony Saunders, Graham Rosser, Norman Bach and Bill Tucker. Tony, of course, still gets great results at the club.

I have fond memories of both Peter Willcocks and Omar — Peter was a really lovely player who was technically one of the best who played the game locally and he was an avid student of the game. On many a day he would pop over to the golf shop where Alan Douglas works and have a natter about the previous night’s game.

I was really lucky to hang out with Omar in New Orleans in 1978 at the World Pairs Championship — we played against him (I partnered Colin Millington) and he invited us to dinner at the greasy spoon in the hotel, where he spent the night looking a bit bored as people just talked bridge and movies.

I was at the time a horse racing fan and knew that Omar owned a nice two-year-old called Baz, so I asked him how Baz was doing.

My goodness, we suddenly couldn’t stop him talking and we spent a lot of time together that week and even played some rubber bridge between sessions.

My main memory when with him was of continually being handed a camera by some woman or girl who then posed with Omar and asked me to take a photo of them! That seemed to happen a dozen times a day! He was a warm, engaging person and he captured a lot of his early life in an Autobiography entitled The Eternal Male which I think was published that year!

Omar was a brilliant bridge player and captained the Egyptian team on many occasions — he never quite got enough credit for his bridge skills.

Omar would certainly have got this one right !

Board 7. Game All. Dealer South.

S AK98

H KJ32

D 1097

C Q10

S Q64

H 10

D AQ543

C AJ75

You are in 3NT as West and North leads a heart on which South plays the Queen – over to you .

Well, it is a standard hold up play, with a twist! You must refuse to win the first Heart ... South now continues with the 9 of Hearts ... and you must also refuse to cover that!

The full hand :

NORTH

S J10

H A8764

D K62

C 643

WEST

AK98

KJ32

1097

Q10

EAST

S Q64

H 10

D AQ543

C AJ75

SOUTH

S 7532

H Q95

D J8

C K982

The defence is now dead. South plays a third Heart with a sinking feeling and East wins and tries a sneaky Diamond ... you win the Queen, cross to the Ace of Spades and take the Club finesse. This loses, but you now have a lot of tricks and chalk up plus 600 ... aren’t you a clever little bunny !

Notice that if you make the mistake of playing an honour on the Heart 9 the defence have to stay awake and North must duck in order to retain communications ... once she does that, the contract is dead. Nice hand!