TONIGHT sees the last of the STAC games which have been taking place over the last couple of weeks, allowing local players the opportunity to rack up additional master points in their quest to reach the next level of achievement in the rankings.The big win over this period came from Roman Smolski and Vera Petty, who racked up a 78% game on Monday afternoon to win the District-Wide Event — great result!

I hear there have also been a number of other pairs in the District-Wide overalls, so watch next week’s column for a full listing.

Bridge is all about invention, and the great players in the game are often like artists presented with a black canvas on which they are invited to excel.

Many of the great plays are born out of desperation, and quite often the key to the play is to anticipate how the opponents will react in certain situations.

All of this applies to this week’s hand which came up some years ago in a high stakes rubber bridge game — I won’t have the cards exactly right but that won’t change the central theme.

Dealer South, N/S VulnerableNorth

<$f"ZapfDingbats">|0xab|K 10 3

[heart]8 3 2

[diamond]K Q J 10

[club]6 4 3

South

<$f"ZapfDingbats">|0xab|9 8 7 6 5

[heart]A

[diamond]A 5

[club]A K Q J 5The bidding was not pretty>South North

1[spade] (1) 1NT (2)

3[club] (3) 4[spade] (4)

5[spade] (5) 6[spade] (6)1. Horrible suit — tempting to open a club and treat the spade suit as a four card suit, but I must admit that in the end I would open a spade.

2. Forcing, meaning to bid 2 spades next.

3. Reasonable — great shape in this hand.

4. Saying ‘thanks — but this is enough’.

5. Very aggressive — this bid asks for really heavy help in the trump suit.

6. Probably misunderstood as this is good help in spades, but a long way from heavy!

West led the heart king and dummy was a depressing sight as there is no lie of the spade suit that could stop the opponents from taking two tricks, as long as they didn’t do anything stupid. South, however, was a player with vast experience and saw one little ray of hope if the cards lay right and the opponents could be persuaded to help.

Let me show you the full haNorth

[spade]K 10 3

[heart]8 3 2

[diamond]K Q J 10

[club4 3

West East<$>

[spade]A 4 2 [spade]Q J

[heart]K Q J 10 [heart]9 7 6 5 4

[diamond]6 4 3 [diamond]9 8 7 2

[club]10 8 2 [club]9 7

South

[spade]9 8 7 6 5

[heart]A

[diamond]A 5

[club]A K Q J 5After surveying this hopeless situation declarer won the ace of hearts, cashed the ace of diamonds and now led a low spade, looking for all the world like a man looking to get to dummy to throw losing hearts on the diamonds suit.

West, who clearly hadn’t watched partner’s diamond or heart card, was having none of this and jumped up with the ace, crashing one of partner’s honours and tired to cash a heart. Curtains!!

The spade suit now came in and the contract made! How would you have done as West??? Really???