The senior teams event will have concluded last night when the second session took place, so results next week. It is still pretty open after the first session though the Burville team (John Burville, David Cordon, Elizabeth McKee and John Glynn) held a nice lead after winning all their four matches and scoring a total of 65 victory points out of the 80 available. Three other teams, however, won three of their four matches and sit in second, third and fourth with 54 victory points, 48 victory points and 48 victory points so while the leaders have a nice cushion it is still all to play for.

This week’s hand came up a couple of weeks ago on a Thursday night in the Common game which was played throughout the district and it was interesting to see just how many players actually went down on a hand that should probably make an overtrick! Two of the local players asked me to comment on the bidding and the play of the hand.

S A95

H QJ63

D AKQ65

C 6

S KQ1092

H A42

D 32

C 973

The bidding was interesting. North opened one Diamond, South bid a Spade and North was in a bit of a spot…..two Diamonds does not do justice to the hand so she bid two Hearts, a reverse bid which should have a bit more strength but is a suitable gamble. South now had a tough bid…..two Spades would sound too weak so he chose a multipurpose forcing bid of three Clubs to see what partner said. When partner bid three Spades South had an easy four Spade bid.

West led a trump to the Jack and declarer’s Queen and declarer now had to decide upon a line of play. Some drew trumps (East had four), played Diamonds from the top discarding a Club and when Diamonds didn’t break tried the Heart finesse. This lost and the defence cashed two Clubs … 10 tricks for declarer — not awful but there is more available!

Let’s now take a look at the full hand:

North

S A95

H QJ63

D AKQ65

C 6

West

S 4

H K1075

D J1094

C KJ105

East

S J643

H 98

D 87

C AQ842

South

S KQ1092

H A42

D 32

C 973

These hands are not easy. If declarer draws trumps he loses control of the Club suit which we saw earlier and ten tricks is probably the max after that start.

The key here is to give up your losers while you still have all suits controlled so my suggestion (before seeing the East-West hands!) was to win the Spade and immediately lead a low Heart from hand! Look what that does! The defence goes into panic mode. West will win the Heart and cash a Club because if he doesn’t the declarer, for all he knows, can possibly make 12 tricks by drawing trump and ruffing out the Diamond and scoring six Spades, four Diamonds and two Hearts, though on this hand declarer only has five Spades so 11 tricks is the max. Key to the play was declarer accepting that the Heart suit always had a loser on 90+ per cent of the distributions and thus giving up the loser early to set up tricks and transportation while the Club suit was still controlled by the singleton and two trumps in dummy. Yes, there are 12 tricks available by drawing trumps if Diamonds are 3-3 and the heart finesse is on but that is something like a 15 per cent chance, not enough to justify that line of play. The hand is yet another example of the need for planning and patience on a hand. Too many declarers are loath to give the lead to the defenders until they are absolutely forced to and that ends up being costly.