Many congratulations to the team of Ross Cooper, Scott Gilbertson, Julia Tadman and Josh Hussey who won the Junior Teams Championship with a dominant five wins from their five matches.

This came against an encouragingly large field of eight teams, including some of the newer players at the club, which is exciting news for the club going forward.

In second place was the team of Sarah Bowers, Stuart Clare, Rob and James Mulderig, and in third place were Heidi Dyson, Amanda Ingham, Jaime Ferrari McComb and Ed Willis.

Every team managed to win at least one of their matches – so well done all!

The win was fairly comfortable with the winners amassing 78 victory points out of a possible 100, with second place on 65 and third place on 58 – to win all five shows real consistency and partnership trust, and the win was clearly well deserved.

This is the start of an exciting journey for all 16 pairs and at this stage of their development the players probably find the teams format easier to handle as the distraction of overtricks does not come into play.

Teams bridge is probably the purest form of the game and the excitement generated by comparing scores after each match adds a new dimension to the game.

Well done to the winners and the podium pairs – as I wrote earlier, the turnout of 32 players is marvellous news for the club, which now has to figure out just what is needed to keep these players engaged over the long term so that they will develop into Open competition.

This week’s hand (see Figure 1) is aimed squarely at the junior players – the bidding is important and while the play it is probably a bit advanced for them at this point, it should make them aware of one of the keys to success when playing in a no-trump contract.

South opened 1NT (15-17 HCP) and North bid two clubs, which is Stayman asking for a major. South duly bid two hearts and with nine points, North bid an invitational 2NT asking partner to pass with a minimum or bid game with a maximum – on this hand South had an easy raise to 3NT.

Now to the play and let’s assume you are playing Teams and all you want to do is make the contract – West leads the diamond and East plays the Jack – over to you!

You must duck the Jack at trick one – not easy! It is clear you have to take the spade finesse at some point and if East gets in you want to make sure that you cut communications between East and West.

You can see now that taking the first heart would be fatal – if you duck, East will continue diamonds but the defence is now dead – try it!

If South had held Axx in diamonds the hold-up play looks obvious – with KQx it is less obvious, but correct.

Now that we sorted the declarer play I want to take a bit of time to discuss the bidding. North has bid the hand well and South played her part.

But what if South held J1032, AK72, KQ4, A5 instead of the hand above? South must bid four spades instead of 3NT!

Why? North is promising four spades on this bidding – he employed Stayman and clearly didn’t like hearts, so he must have spades, because without four cards in spades or hearts he would simply invite with 2NT and not use Stayman – by using Stayman first he promises at least one four-card major.

And just to complete the lesson, if after hearing the 2NT invite South held 4 spades in a 15 point hand she would bid three spades, declining the invitation but placing the suit, and that must end the bidding.

A first reading of this might be a bit confusing, so read it again and absorb it, as this bidding sequence will come up time and time and time again!

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

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, June 20

1 Jack Rhind/Judith Bussell

2 Tony Saunders/Margaret Way

3 Duncan Silver/Marion Silver

Monday, June 23

North/South

1 Gertrude Barker/Margaret Way

2 Louise Rodger/Molly Taussig

3 Duncan Silver/Marion Silver

East/West

1 Sancia Garrison/Jane Smith

2 Martha Ferguson/Judy King

3 Lorna Anderson/Heather Woolf

Tuesday, June 24

North/South

1 Tracey Pitt/David Leach

2 Amanda Ingham/Heidi Dyson

East/West

1 Ross Cooper/Scott Gilbertson

2 Richard Bruton/Chris Van Rooyen

Wednesday, June 24

1 Patricia Siddle/Diana Diel

2 Jack Rhind/Judith Bussell

3 Charles Hall/Margaret Way

Thursday, June 25

1 Peter Donnellan/Lynanne Bolton

2 Charles Hall/Stephanie Kyme

3 Gertrude Barker/John F.W. Glynn