The excitement of the ACBL Summer Nationals in Toronto is now over and from all accounts the Bermuda contingent had a great time at a well-organised event.

I didn’t get much input from people attending and apart from the excellent result posted by Heather Woolf and Gordon Bussell, which I reported on last week, most of the other excitement revolved around the performances of the youth players who travelled to the event.

The group was put together by John Burville who was assisted by Gertie Barker from the Bridge Club, and Dawn Nichols Marshal, a Berkeley teacher (Berkeley provided ten of the youth players) who has taken over responsibility from Meredith Callaghan for the bridge initiative at the school.

The youngsters played a lot and there were some encouraging results — before they travelled I said that any score above 50 per cent by a pair from this group would represent an excellent result and it looks like this was achieved by a few pairs — Amaury Majors — Mical Hardtman; Charlotte Emery-King — Adeline Young; Zahra Wilson — Lejaun Matthews; and Ross Cooper — Scott Gilbertson who finished 1st in B and 3rd in A in one event. Excellent stuff!

The positive results didn’t stop there, with good scores being posted by Robert Thomas — Denzel Johnston; Jinairo Johnson — Jaseehim Smith; Shane Kruger — Katarina Rance; and Caleb Simmons — Casey Hardtman. From all accounts this was a great entry for these youngsters into a major tournament and hopefully gave them a good feeling for tournament bridge.

This week’s hand may have caught some of the starter group out, but should not present a problem for an intermediate or advanced player.

Dealer South E/W Vul

S AQJ

H A5

D AQJ962

C K7

S 109

H KQJ1064

D 1084

C K7

South opened the hand a weak 2 Hearts and North made the marvellously practical bid of 6 Hearts.

There is no sensible way to bid this hand and even if North employed Blackwood and found partner with the Club Ace, the Diamond suit is still a mystery so bidding the grand slam is out of the question — so the small slam bid is entirely reasonable

West did what many players would do on a non cue-bid sequence by cashing the Club Ace at trick one and then when dummy came down following with a sneaky looking two of Spades.

Refusing to be tricked, declarer played the Queen which lost to the King, down one.

Declarer did not think about the play at trick two long enough.

Even if the Spade finesse works the slam does not make unless the Diamond finesse works — and if the Diamond finesse works, the Spade finesse is totally unnecessary.

The full deal!

S AQJ

H A5

D AQJ962

C K7

S 68432 S K765

H 87 H 932

D K73 D 5

C A642 C J10985

S 109

H KQJ1064

D 1084

C Q3

So the right play is pretty easy — win the Spade Ace, draw trumps and then play the Diamond 10. The hand now rolls in and declarer chalks up a very satisfying 980, resulting in a very good board and a very happy partner.

It doesn’t take much to make partners happy — and a little bit of extra thought always helps.