The Bermuda Sectional is now just over a month away and here is the entire schedule if you want to start planning your games.

Unit 198, The American Contract Bridge League

The Bermuda Sectional October 16 to 20, 2026

Friday, October 16, 12.30pm, Open Pairs Single Session

Saturday, October 17, 9.30am and 2pm, Open Pairs Single Session

Sunday, October 18, 10am and 2pm, Open Teams Double Session

Monday, October 19, 12.30pm, Open Pairs Single Session

Tuesday, October 20, 7pm, 99er Pairs sessions

If there is sufficient demand, a 99er game will be held on Saturday afternoon at 2pm, and a 0-5 MPs game for beginners will also be arranged at the same time.

Entry fee per player: $15 per session. It is an ACBL requirement that players must be members of the ACBL.

All stratification will be based on average points — open pairs games: open/1250/500 — 99er games: 100/50/20.

Teams stratification: as determined by the director-in-charge to achieve approximately the same number of teams in each stratum.

The director may adjust stratification as he deems necessary for appropriate awards.

The director-in-charge is Jack Rhind, the unit chairwoman is Tracy Nash, and the sectional chairman is Peter Donnellan (peterdonnellan1951@gmail.com).

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Now to this week’s hand. In last week’s column I suggested leaving finesses in the declarer play until you had absolutely no choice but to employ the play.

This week’s hand is a bit different — declarer spotted a finesse that would help him make the hand if it worked, and used it early, and was successful.

See if you can spot the finesse — and a warning, it is not the usual finesse you look at — this one is the finesse of a non-honour card — now try it!

West led the ten of clubs, revealing a disappointing dummy. Declarer counted four losers in the minor suits and saw that the only prospect for getting rid of one of them was to develop an extra trick in hearts — that, however, required two entries to dummy.

Having decided this, declarer took the ten of clubs with the dummy’s Ace and played the seven of hearts to his Ace.

Declarer then led the three of trumps and finessed dummy’s eight when West followed low! This is a 50 per cent chance compared to a 2.8 per cent chance of a singleton nine of trumps with East.

After that held, declarer called for the Queen of hearts from dummy. When East played low, declarer discarded a club from hand.

West won the heart King and exited with the nine of clubs. East took the trick with the Queen and continued with the King of clubs.

Declarer ruffed high, then crossed to dummy with the Ace of trumps to throw a low diamond on the established Jack of hearts.

All that remained was for declarer to re-enter his hand with the Ace of diamonds and draw the last trump: declarer had made six trumps, two hearts and the minor suit Aces for his contract.

The next set of Beginners Bridge Lessons will start this coming Monday, September 14, at 6:45pm to 9pm and run until the end of March with a break for Christmas. Message bridgelessons@bermudabridge.com for details and registration.

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

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, September 4

1 Stephanie Kyme/Diana Diel

2 Richard Hall/Molly Taussig

3 Lorna Anderson/Joyce Pearson

Monday, September 7

North/South

1 Richard Gray/Wendy Gray

2 Sheena Rayner/Magda Farag

East/West

1 Miodrag Novakovic/Delton Outerbridge

2 Patricia Siddle/Diana Diel

Tuesday, September 8

North/South

1= Barbara Harrington/Eldon Lewis

1= Ross Cooper/Desiree Woods

East/West

1 David Leach/Jean Schilling

2 Sandra Ogden/Richard Neame

Wednesday, September 9

1 Richard Gray/Wendy Gray

2 Patricia Siddle/Diana Diel

3 Louise Rodger/Margaret Way

Thursday, September 10

1 Martha Ferguson/Desmond Nash

2 Stephan Cosham/Judy King

3 Miodrag Novakovic/Margaret Way