Many congratulations to Joshimar Hussey and Julia Tadman, who took the Bermuda Bridge Club Junior Pairs Championship after two hotly contested and high quality sessions ending last Tuesday night.

The winners scored 122.67 match points over the two sessions and in second place were Tracey Pitt and David Leach with 120.83. In third were Ross Cooper and Desiree Woods on 118, while fourth place went to Richard and Louise Neam, and Amanda Ingham and Heidi Dyson placed fifth.

There was no let up in this event — all these five pairs filled the top five positions at the halfway point when we, unusually, had three pairs scoring over 60 per cent — Tracey and David led with a 67.22 per cent game, ahead of Ross and Desiree on 63.81 per cent, and Joshimar and Julia on 62.78 per cent. All these pairs deserve congratulations for consistency over the two sessions, not always the easiest thing to produce.

The standing in Flight B were the same, as all four top-placed pairs were eligible for Flight B — the winners of Flight C were Richard and Louise Neame, with Andy McComb and Jacques Bonneau in second.

It's great to see such competitive play at this level and it is exciting to think that some of these pairs, with a bit of hard work, can soon be featuring at the Open level and getting some results — congrats again!

***

Declarer Play is, at a beginner, Intermediate and even Advanced level, probably the most difficult part of bridge to master, and one not only needs to play a lot of hands to improve, but also needs to look at the hands played and spot the mistakes, and then take steps to correct them.

Today’s hand (see Figure 1) displays just how much impact ‘ having been there’ and ‘experience’ have on a game of bridge, be it in the bidding or in the play.

This deal came up in a Teams game and both sides had similar auctions to the spade slam. North transferred to spades and then jumped to five spades to show a solid suit. South now made the excellent six-spade bid, instead of 6NT as he thought the diamond suit may need a ruff or two to set it up.

Both West players correctly deduced that they had almost all the defensive strength and that partner will play no part in helping the defence — consequently, both West players believed that the passive lead of a trump was best.

Both declarers drew three rounds of trumps, discarding a heart from hand, and then led a diamond. This is where their play diverged.

At the first table, declarer took the Ace and King of diamonds and was disappointed to find the suit 5-1, with no chance of developing an extra trick in the suit.

Next, he cashed the Ace of clubs, unblocking dummy’s Jack, then ruffed a diamond before leading the five of clubs to his ten.

West took it with the Queen and exited with the Queen of diamonds. Declarer ruffed this in dummy and took the normal play of leading a low heart from dummy to his Queen.

Alas West produced the King of hearts, for down one. Unlucky! Diamonds 5-1 and both the heart and club finesses failing.

Declarer at the other table, however, showed that you can make your own luck — when a diamond was led from dummy and East followed with a low card, declarer (a wily veteran of the game) made certain of his contract by playing the ten of diamonds!

West won this with his Jack and now was in the unenviable position of deciding how to concede a 12th trick to declarer.

A heart or a club would do that immediately, while the Queen or nine of diamonds would allow declarer to win and take a ruffing finesse against West's remaining top diamond to establish his 12th trick.

You might wonder at first why the second declarer’s line was certain. The point is that if the diamonds are no worse than 4-2, declarer still had the entries to establish the suit with ruffs and get back to hand to cash any diamond winner(s) he had set up.

The play of the ten just gave him an extra chance and at Teams the opponents who make all 13 tricks because diamonds are 3-3 don’t gain much.

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

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, March 20

North/South

1 Charles Hall/Molly Taussig

2 Jane Smith/Margaret Way

3 Tony Saunders/Patricia Siddle

East/West

1 Gertrude Barker/Peter Donnellan

2 Judith Bussell/Martha Ferguson

3 Elysa Burland/Heather Woolf

Monday, March 23

North/South

1 William Pollett/Linda Pollett

2 Richard Gray/Wendy Gray

3 Duncan Silver/Marion Silver

East/West

1 Gertrude Barker/Charles Hall

2 Patricia Siddle/Diana Diel

3 Judith Bussell/Kim Simmons

Tuesday, March 24

Junior Pairs Championship

1 Julia Tadman/Joshimar Hussey

2 Tracey Pitt/David Leach

3 Desiree Woods/Ross Cooper

Wednesday, March 25

1 Charles Hall/Margaret Way

2 William Pollett/Linda Pollett

3 Duncan Silver/Marion Silver

Thursday, March 26

1 Miodrag Novakovic/Margaret Way

2 Peter Donnellan/Charles Hall

3 Duncan Silver/Marion Silver