Many congratulations to the team of Rachael Gosling, John Glynn, Stephanie Kyme and Charles Hall, who last Friday won the Mixed Teams event at the Caribbean and Central American Bridge Federation Championship Bridge Tournament in Barbados after a comfortable win over the home team in the final.

The team travelled to take part in two events – the Open Teams, which served as a qualifier for the next round of the Bermuda Bowl, and then the Mixed Teams event which qualified the winners for the Wuhan Cup.

The Open Teams was won comfortably by perennial winners Guadeloupe, who field the same experienced squad every year, with Bermuda finishing third in the four-team field after a strong start.

Bermuda then regrouped and moved on to the Mixed Teams with Barbados and Guadeloupe. They ended up playing Barbados in the final and after the first 16 boards had a nice lead of 35-14. The second session was a bit tighter but in the end Bermuda stayed disciplined and kept it tight and ran out comfortable winners with a final score of 72-49.

The second session started with a little drama as Stephanie was unwell and a doubtful starter. But in the end, according to Rachael: “Stephanie was the star today. She woke up feeling unwell and was still poorly with 20 minutes to go before game time. She, however, refused to let the team down and still came to the wicket and ended up playing like Brian Lara!”

Well done to the whole team who achieved this result despite playing with only two pairs, a tough ask when there is constant bridge over a number of days. All these four players have proven their quality time and time again at club level and it is great to see this deserved success on a bigger stage.

The Guadeloupe winning team will move on to the next round of the Bermuda Bowl trials in Denmark and the Bermuda team will also travel there as they have qualified for the prestigious Wuhan Cup. That will be a tough event and hopefully they can add a third pair to help carry the load – that might be essential.

Here is a hand (see Figure 1) from the final that produced a huge gain for Bermuda.

Rachael opened a precision club – like two clubs with the West hand, except under their system it showed 11-15 hcp and at least six clubs – after a pass by North, John now made the super bid of jumping straight to five clubs!

The bid shows real bridge savvy – he has a hand with great distribution and with one opponent having a club void or singleton, they may well have a play or save in four hearts! The jump pretty much ensured that the opponents were locked out of the bidding.

A diamond lead beats the contract but North had a natural lead of the spade queen and Rachael did the rest – win the spade and play a heart. Now she can’t be stopped from ruffing three hearts in dummy and discarding her diamond on the spade Ace.

Notice that even drawing one trump would be fatal as South could play a second trump when in with the heart and the contract would fail.

At the other table the hand was passed out, giving Bermuda a well deserved swing.

Again, Rachael, John, Steph, Charles – well done!

• David Ezekiel can be reached on davidezekiel999@gmail.com

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, May 2

1 John Burville/Molly Taussig

2 Jane Smith/Sancia Garrison

3 Louise Rodger/Magda Farag

Monday, May 5

North/South

1 Allyson Eadie/Aida Bostelmann

2 Richard Gray/Wendy Gray

3 Charles Hall/Tony Saunders

East/West

1 Stephanie Kyme/Molly Taussig

2 Sancia Garrison/Jane Gregory

3 Caroline Svensen/Jane Clipper

Tuesday, May 6

North/South

1 Ben Stone/Mark Stevens

2 Ross Cooper/Scott Gilbertson

3 Keri McKitrick/Heidi Dyson

East/West

1 Jacques Bonneau/Andy McComb

2 Tracey Pitt/Desiree Woods

3 Veronica Boyce/Carol Eastham

Wednesday, May 7

1 Sheena Rayner/Magda Farag

2 Betsy Baillie/Sharon Shanahan

3 Diana Diel/Patricia Siddle

Thursday, May 8

1 Gertrude Barker/John F W Glynn

2 Delton Outerbridge/Betsy Baillie

3 Erika Jones/Caitlin Conyers