After a brief lull in the action the Tournament season resumed this week with the Mixed Pairs taking place on Monday, 11 April and Friday 15 April, and after the first session there is a bit of separation at the top.

Jane King and Alan Douglas lead with 114, followed by Rachael Gosling and Simon Giffen on 106.5 and David Cordon and Julia Lunn on 102.5.

There is then a gap to fourth place on 92.5 but as we’ve seen in recent tournaments a lot can happen in that second session so watch this space!

The second session was held last night so results in next week’s column.

This week’s hand is one that will usually defeat the inexperienced player — see how you would handle it!

Dealer South E/W Vul

North

S A976

H AQJ

D A93

CA53

East

S 8532

H

43

D 1087

C 9874

South

S 4

HK10976

D KQJ2

C KJ6

West

S KQJ10

H 852

D 654

C Q102

South opened his hand one Heart and North, who had never held 19 points and all four Aces after partner had opened, soon propelled the bidding to the Heart Grand Slam against which West led the Spade King.

There are 12 top tricks and it looked like the Club finesse had to work for the 13th but as the cards lay most declarers made just the 12 — one declarer, however, showed that he had been here before!

Choose your line of play before reading on ... no cheating!

He won the Spade, ruffed a Spade, crossed to a Heart and ruffed another Spade, crossed to a Heart and ruffed the last Spade to end up in this position: Now

North

S None

H A

D A93

C A53

East

SNone

H None

D 1087

C 9874

South

S None

H None

D KQJ2

C KJ6

West

S None

H 8

D 654

C Q102

Now a Club to the Ace, draw the last trump throwing a losing Club from hand and the rest of the tricks are good — Grand Slam bid and made!!

The loser disappeared because South execute a perfect dummy-reversal.

This was where declarer ruffs a number of losers in the hand with the long trumps until the hand which started with the short trumps ends up having more trumps in order to draw the opponents trumps.

So on this hand declarer made three trumps in dummy in addition to three ruffs turning 5 trump winners into 6. That added to a Spade, four Diamonds and two Clubs adds up to 13 tricks.