Many congratulations to Max Santiago and Gareth Cooper, winners of the 2025 Novice Pairs Championship, held last Tuesday night at the Bridge Club, with a great 70 per cent game.

In second place were Edward Willis and Jaime Ferrari-McComb on 60.42 per cent and tied in third place were Julia Tadman/Joshimar Hussey and Michael Frings/Sanja Thompson on 56.25 per cent.

Also scoring above 50 per cent were Davina Dickinson/Sheena Trott and Andy McComb/Jacques Bonneau, the last named pair clearly now looking for something other than golf to stress them out!

There was a really good turnout of ten pairs – for most, if not all, of the pairs this will have been their first competitive event, which is really daunting so the table count was excellent, no doubt aided by the recently completed beginners’ course.

Great score by Max and Gareth who, from looking at the individual boards, were solid throughout both in the bidding and in declarer play, and we’ll be looking for them and many of these pairs to progress into the Junior ranks, then Intermediate and finally the ultimate excitement of Open competition.

I really hope all ten pairs take some positives from participating – this is a hugely tough game in the early stages and at this point in their development one is operating in a fog 70 per cent of the time, but as one plays and practises the fog slowly lifts to fully unveil the beautiful game that has no equal – challenging, social, often frustrating but most of all so exciting when the pieces fall in place. Those who stick with it are fully rewarded.

I still play a fair amount of bridge online and find that the standard in the three main disciplines of bridge – declarer play, bidding and defence – are just hugely different.

The bidding, especially in uncontested auctions, is generally really good – one can see the work put in by the players and the bridge lessons they will have attended to get better.

Declarer play is usually average and perhaps a bit better than I would have expected as it is certainly the most difficult of the three.

The standard in defence is, however, pretty shocking, with the usual faults – getting too busy in defence, not trying to construct declarer’s hand from the bidding and, probably the most prevalent fault, a rush to cash tricks and a total lack of nerve and patience when defending. Defenders find it impossible to stop grabbing tricks with seemingly no thought or plan.

This hand (see Figure 1) came up on BBO today.

North had 19hcp so could not open 1NT, so he opened a diamond intending to jump in NT if South responded – once South bid 1NT he had an automatic raise to 3NT.

West led the five of hearts which East won with the King and then returned the ten. South played the Queen, which West won with the Ace …….curtains! The defence is now dead!

West cleared the hearts, but now with no entry the contract made an easy ten tricks – criminal!

Let’s reconstruct the bidding and the play – South’s bid of 1NT denied a four-card major so both South and East must have three hearts – also, since East led back the heart ten he is denying the Jack or the Queen, so South must have started with QJ2!

Once West figures this out, he must make the right play of ducking the heart at trick two and retaining communication – now when East gets in with the diamond Ace another heart lead beats the contract.

It is all pretty easy when it is analysed step by step and that is what you have to do at the table – and then have the confidence, and bravery, to duck the second heart in order to reach your goal, which is to defeat the contract!

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