In a couple of weeks, the Bermuda team of Jack Rhind (captain), Judy Bussell, Rachael Gosling, John Glynn, Charles Hall and Stephanie Kyme will travel Denmark to contest the Wuhan Cup.

The last four named earned the qualification by winning the trials in Barbados in the spring, and added Jack and Judy to supplement the team for the finals – an essential move as the team will play 23 matches of 14 boards each over six days, and team rotation will be more than necessary.

The Wuhan Cup was inaugurated in 2019 and is a biennial world championship  tournament for national mixed teams.

It is contested every odd-number year under the auspices of the World Bridge Federation, alongside the Bermuda Bowl (Open World Championship), d'Orsi Bowl (Seniors World Championship) and Venice Cup (Women’s World Championship). The event gets its name from the City of Wuhan which presented the trophy and will provide replicas for future editions.

I’ll bring you full results as the event gets under way – this is a new level for this team, as a lot of the opposing teams will have players that do little else but play bridge, but they have the experience to put up a good showing.

There are many crimes committed at the bridge table, in the bidding, defence and declarer play, though most of them go unnoticed. Today’s hand (see Figure 1), however, features not one, but two, criminals sitting at the same table. See if you can spot them.

The bidding was over fairly quickly – South opened a pre-emptive three hearts, West bid three spades and North raised to four hearts, which closed the auction.

East could have bid four spades which probably only goes one down, but he had hopes of beating the contract so his pass can’t be classed as criminal – so the scoundrels are still at large!

The play was also over fairly quickly – West led the King of spades, which declarer won, drew trumps in two rounds and then played the club ten and took the finesse – all looks fairly normal?

East won and made the obvious diamond switch by leading the diamond three. Declarer played low and West won the ten but looking at the clubs on the table, had to cash the diamond Ace and the contract made.

So we have criminal number one! Foreseeing what could happen, East must lead the Jack of diamonds when in, hoping partner has the ten, and the contract is defeated.

This, however, is not the biggest crime – the big criminal is South the declarer and it was only his initial crime that allowed east to incriminate himself! Do you see the horrible action by South?

South must think ahead and realise that East is the danger hand for the diamonds and must protect against that by refusing to win the first trick! The defence is now helpless – South wins the spade continuation, draws trumps with the Ace and King, cashes the spade and throws a club.

This is now the position (see Figure 2):

Declarer now cashes the Ace of clubs and plays the Queen – the defence is dead whether East plays the King or not – declarer can get two diamond pitches on the clubs and loses just one diamond – making with an overtrick.

And what if West has the club King …. declarer pitches a diamond on the club Queen which West wins but all he can now do is cash the diamond Ace – contract making.

In the court hearing the judge sentenced South heavily but let East off with a suspended sentence – quite appropriate I think!

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

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, July 25

1 Gertrude Barker/Molly Taussig

2 Jane Smith/Margaret Way

3 Richard Gray/Wendy Gray

Monday, July 28

1 Judith Bussell/Stephanie Kyme

2 Diana Diel/Patricia Siddle

3= Betsy Baillie/Joyce Pearson

3= Jane Smith Sancia Garrison

Tuesday, July 29

1 Tim McKittrick/Keri McKittrick

2 Sally Irvine/Sandra Ogden

Wednesday, July 30

1 Judith Bussell/Sheena Rayner

2 Betsy Baillie/Sharon Shanahan

3 Richard Gray/Wendy Gray