Last Saturday saw a new event at Bermuda Bridge Club — the Championship Pairs. It took place over two sessions on the Saturday and when the smoke had cleared Marge Way/Elizabeth McKee and Betsy Baillie/Sharon Shanahan ended up in a tie for first place with first-round leaders Molly Taussig/Gertie Barker in third.

After the first session, Betsy and Sharon were lying in third place with 62 per cent behind Molly and Gertie (an excellent 69 per cent game) and John Glynn/Delton Outerbridge in second with 63 per cent. In the second session Marge and Elizabeth came from a long way back to grab a share of the spoils with Betsy and Sharon.

Well done to the joint winners — Marge and Elizabeth have been in the top strata of the local game for a long time and have won a lot in the past, but this was a standout performance from Betsy and Sharon who are B players and won the B strata convincingly to add to the joint win in A. Many congratulations to the winners and to Molly/Gertie in third.

The Conditions of Contest stated that all pairs had to be comprised of either two men or two women, and that if there were at least six men’s pairs playing, the highest placed men’s pair would be declared the Men’s Open Champions for 2025.

There were in fact seven men’s pairs in the 12-pair field so that title goes to John and Delton who were the highest placed men’s pair by finishing fourth — many congratulations!

Today’s hand (see Figure 1) saw three different declarers take different lines of play — the Intermediate and Advanced declarers failed and the Expert, as you would expect, was successful.

At most tables, North opened one diamond, South bid a spade and North bid 2NT showing an 18-19 point hand.

South now bid three clubs as checkback and when North showed three spades he bid the spade game, because of his two red suit doubletons.

At all three tables, the defence started with the Queen of hearts. The first declarer took a simple route — after ruffing  the third heart he drew three rounds of trumps and played a diamond to the King, hoping West held the Ace so that he could eventually get a club discard.

Alas, West won the Ace and forced declarer to ruff a heart with his last trump — now declarer has to hope for a 3-3 break in clubs — when this failed so did the contract.

The second (Advanced) declarer proceeded the same way after ruffing the third heart by playing a diamond to the King and Ace. He won the spade return and drew only one more round of trumps and then played on clubs.

This would succeed when clubs were 3-3 or when the defender with the remaining defensive trump also held four clubs. Declarer could then ruff the fourth club in dummy. This was a better line of play but West ruffed the third club and the contract went down.

At the third table, the Expert took yet another route after the diamond lost to the Ace and a trump came back. He drew one more trump and instead of playing on clubs, this declarer cashed the Queen of diamonds and ruffed a diamond.

Then he returned to dummy with a club to the King and ruffed a second diamond. Next, declarer led a second club to dummy’s Queen.

After that held, he drew the last trump with dummy’s King, discarding a low club from hand. The Ace of clubs was declarer’s tenth trick. Beautiful play!

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

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, November 21

1 Diana Diel/Stephanie Kyme

2 Jane Smith/Sancia Garrison

3 Tony Saunders/Margaret Way

Saturday, November 22

Championship Match Overall

1= Sharon Shanahan/Betsy Baillie

1= Margaret Way/Elizabeth McKee

Men’s Championship

John F W Glynn/Delton Outerbridge

Monday, November 24

North/South

1 Peter Donnellan/Lynanne Bolton

2= Allyson Eadie/Aida Bostelmann

2= Judy King/Martha Ferguson

East/West

1 John Rayner/Charles Hall

2 Caroline Svensen/Jane Clipper

3 Sancia Garrison/Jane Smith

Tuesday, November 25

1= Tim McKittrick/Keri McKittrick

1= Desiree Woods/Eldon Lewis

3 Felicity Lund/Ian Boatman

Wednesday, November 26

North/South

1 Elysa Burland/Magda Farag

2 Charles Hall/Stephanie Kyme

East/West

1 Gertrude Barker/Jane Smith

2 Tracy Nash/Desmond Nash