Not a lot going on at the club at present with no tournaments on the horizon. Coming in September, though, is a new set of beginner lessons, which will start on Monday, September 14 at 6:45pm to 9pm, and run until the end of March with a break for Christmas.

So if you know someone who wants to take up the game, or a beginner who needs some more help, let them know.

When there is a lull in the schedule, players should be using the time to brush up on their skills, and one easy way to do it is to play the “Instant Tournaments” on Bridge Base Online or on other bridge sites.

I love the ones on BBO because the two robot opponents are brutal — never a defensive error, and if you step out of line in the bidding you will be punished.

For example, you open a 15-17 NT and partner invites to game with 2NT — if you bid 3NT with 15hcp you will always go down and if you do it with 16 it will be a pure 50-50.

So, both in the bidding and the play you need to keep your wits about you!

Before I get to the hand, congrats to Julia Tadman and Josh Hussey for a huge 76.67 per cent game on March 10 — well done!

***

There are times when a declarer in a contract can’t see the wood for the trees and plays on reflex without looking for the possible dangers in the hand. That is normally a recipe for disaster as you will see from today’s hand (see Figure 1).

South opened one spade and then jumped to three spades after North’s 1NT response — North now had an easy raise to four spades with his two Aces -West led the Queen of clubs.

Declarer took this with dummy’s Ace and, not sensing any danger, cashed the Ace of trumps. West’s discard of a low club was a blow from which declarer could not recover because he now had to lose a trump and three tricks in the red suits.

“What rotten luck!” South whined. “Even the best contract of 3NT would fail on a club lead — the 5-0 spade break would limit you to eight tricks because there was no chance of making a fifth trick in spades.”

Partner, however, was not impressed! “Luck had nothing to do with it,” offered an unsympathetic North. “The contract was certain unless the trumps were 5-0 and one of your three red-suit winners failed to cash.

“If they proved to be cashing, which was likely, all you needed to do was make six trump tricks. The way to make them on this layout was to ruff a club at trick two and then play a low trump to dummy’s Ace.

“If both defenders followed to the first trump, you would draw trumps and claim ten tricks. When the 0=5 trump break comes to light you would ruff another club and play the red-suit tops. When they held, you would claim ten tricks — six trumps and the four side-suit winners.”

North was, of course, right — The play of taking a ruff at trick two in the long trump hand as a precaution against trumps behaving badly is quite a common theme, and is worth keeping in mind when a hand such as this appears.

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

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, April 17

North/South

1 Tony Saunders/Patricia Siddle

2 David McDougall/Synde McDougall

3 Nancy Strachan/Linda Tuff

East/West

1 Judith Bussell/Martha Ferguson

2 Jan Lalonde/Sharon Campbell

3 Margaret Way/Jane Smith

Monday, April 20

North/South

1 Gertrude Barker/Caitlin Conyers

2 William Pollett/Linda Pollett

3 Elizabeth McKee/Margaret Way

East/West

1 Elysa Burland/Molly Taussig

2 Patricia Siddle/Diana Diel

3 Peter Donnellan/Lynanne Bolton

Tuesday, April 21

North/South

1 Tracy Pitt/David Leach

2 Ben Stone/James Fielding

3 Carol Eastham/Veronica Boyce

East/West

1 Vivian Periera/Richard Neame (Tied 1st)

1 Ross Cooper/Desiree Woods (Tied 1st)

3 Alex Michael/Alex Merkle

Wednesday, April 22

North/South

1 Richard Gray/Wendy Gray

2 Geoff Bell/Molly Taussig

East/West

1 Judith Bussell/Stephanie Kyme

2 Caroline Svensen/Joyce Pearson

Thursday, April 23

1 Peter Donnellan/Margaret Way

2 Charles Hall/Stephanie Kyme

3 Gertrude Barker/John F W Glynn