The local heat of the WBF 2016 worldwide bridge event was held at the club in two separate games last Friday and Saturday.

The winners of the Friday game with a 65.3 per cent score were Roman Smolski and Margie Way, while Alan Douglas and Jane Smith won the Saturday game with a 60.71 per cent game.

Both of these are good scores, particularly the Smolski-Way score, but the winning scores in this event across all the worldwide clubs that participate go into the stratosphere with some very unbalanced fields at some of the games. Well done to both pairs.

In the coming weeks I’ll bring you some news of the junior team going to the World Youth Bridge Championships in Salsomaggiore in August. A lot of effort has gone into this by John Burville, Roman Smolski and Mike Viotti, and by the team of Ruskin Cave, Liam Peniston, Tyler Irby and Gianluca Cacace. It is a big first step for the youth bridge initiative on the island, which deserves wide support (more on this later).

This week’s hand is from my archives and involved a match in the Concacaf event a few years ago between the Bermuda team and the eventual winners, Guadeloupe. Mistakes by both declarers countered by a big mistake by a Guadeloupe defender give Bermuda a big, but somewhat undeserved, gain on the hand.

Dealer East N/S Vul ... Teams

North

S Q103

H QJ97

D A53

C 1053

East

S 9642

H 10842

D K74

C 42

South

S AKJ5

H A5

D QJ6

C A876

West

S 87

H K63

D 10982

C KQJ9

The bidding was the same in both rooms. South opened a club (the hand is too strong for 1NT) and after partner bid a heart, South jumped to 2NT showing 18-19 HCP. North now had an easy raise to 3NT.

In the closed room, the Guadeloupe West led the king of clubs and continued with the queen, which declarer won. Declarer now played ace and another heart that was correctly ducked by West — with eight tricks in the bag, declarer came to hand with a spade and tried the diamond finesse which lost to East.

East must know that partner has the heart king and a couple of winning clubs, so a simple heart return leads to a one-trick defeat.

East, however, returned a spade and Bermuda wrapped up nine tricks.

In the open room, the play started the same, but after winning the club, the Guadeloupe declarer showed a real lack of imagination.

He took the diamond finesse that lost, and when East returned a heart he now had to take that finesse, which lost, and he was soon one down with only six tricks played! Pedestrian stuff.

The key to this hand is to give yourself every chance, but always keep control of the hand.

After winning the second club, declarer should lead a low heart from hand. If West goes up with the king he can cash his clubs, but declarer has nine tricks, as he has three heart tricks to go with six others.

If West correctly ducks the heart, declarer now abandons hearts and gives up a diamond and makes the hand with four spades, two hearts, two diamonds and a club.

A sort of Morton’s Fork play against West where he had two choices, both losing ones!