Many congratulations to the irrepressible Diana Diel who took the Ernie Owen Individual Championship title at Bridge Club with a stunning game of 69.9 per cent!

Close behind was Heather Woolf with also a terrific 67.66 per cent and remarkably three other players were in the sixties — Betsy Baillie with 65.02 per cent, Malcolm Moseley with 64.29 per cent and Martha Ferguson with 62.57 per cent. Completing the podium in sixth place was Sharon Shanahan with 59.06 per cent.

All the players finishing from second to sixth were also Strata B players so Betsy took the honours in the B Section followed by Malcolm, Martha and Sharon. Finishing fifth and sixth in B were Steve Cosham and Claude Guay.

Malcolm won the C section followed by Desiree Woods in second and the top six were completed by Diana Downs in third and Heidi Dyson, Keri McKittrick and Rob Mulderig in fourth, fifth and sixth.

The turnout was excellent with 44 players taking part including some of the top players at the club, so really well done to all of those listed above. Individual tournaments are tough to handle — you end up playing three hands with people you have probably never played with before and quickly have to adapt to their skill level, personality and bidding style, so patience is often the key word!

On January 10, I am giving a talk at the Bridge Club entitled “How to maximise your ability at the table”. The winner of this week’s event, Diana Diel, clearly knows how to do that — she is an excellent player and I always recall that she had excellent focus on the hand being played and didn’t allow “noise” (other players, recent hands, etc) getting in the way of doing her best with the hand being played at the time.

I should add that the same has also always applied to Marge Way who has been getting great results at the club alongside Diana for six decades! Well done to all the podium finishers.

I have a real soft spot for individual tournaments — I won the North American Individual Championship over two sessions at the Summer Nationals in Boston in 1981 on my birthday (I think it was my 16th birthday but my memory is not what it used to be — for certain things!) and the result also took me to Life Master — as the Bulletin the next day headlined “A real Bermuda Triangle”!

I mentioned my talk at the Bridge Club which is open to all on January 10 between 1.30pm and 3.30pm — sign up at the Club (or e-mail me at davidezekiel999@gmail.com if you are a non-member). More on this in next week’s column.

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As we all know, bridge is a game that needs total concentration from the start of the three-hour-plus session until the end, and if you want to succeed you cannot ever get lazy at the table.

Whether it is in the bidding or defence, both players in the partnership have to stay disciplined, and when one of them is “talking” (bidding or signalling) it important that other partner is awake and “listening”.

With all that said let me take you to one of my favourite hands of all time, but before I do I need to give you a refresher on the “Bath Coup”, as the hand revolves around that play.

The Bath Coup operates usually on the opening lead when declarer is in No Trump. When LHO (left hand opponent) leads the King of a suit and declare has AJx, declarer ducks and now the defence can’t continue that suit and has to switch.

So back to the hand, which took place in a high stakes game in the Bahamas in the 1970s — the hero of the story was a flamboyant American expert whose name, sadly, escapes me! Let’s just call him Broadway!

Broadway was declarer on this hand (see Figure 1) in 3NT after he opened a 13-15 NT and partner raised to 3NT.

West led the heart King, East following with the eight of hearts, and Broadway immediately saw trouble ahead. If he employed the Bath Coup by holding up, West would have to switch, and looking at dummy there was only one suit to switch to, spades, and that would be fatal for the contract as the defence would have spades to cash when in with the Ace of clubs.

Having figured this all out in a flash, Broadway made the brilliant play of throwing the heart Jack under the King!

Enthralled with this development, West now could safely continue with another heart which he did — curtains!

Declarer won this trick and played on clubs — when East won the Ace he had no heart to lead back to partner and the contract made with an overtrick! Just brilliant play by Broadway!

Could the defence have done better? Oh yes, but only if they are both awake and trust each other. West should think on partner’s play of the eight of hearts at trick one — it must show a doubleton (or possibly a singleton) because if declarer did start with just AJ that would leave partner with 872 and she would have played the 2 at trick one! Takes a bit of guts, but West must switch to a spade at trick two!

I never said this game was easy!

Before I leave, here is a fuller lesson on the Bath Coup, as most defenders do not handle it well. So you lead the King from KQ10xx and it goes small-small-small and you are still on lead what do you do?

If partner has the Jack you want to continue, but if he doesn’t you will hand declarer two tricks — so how do you decide?

Actually quite simple …..If partner has the Jack they are obliged to throw it under your King, telling you it is safe to proceed. What that means, however, is that you can never lead the King from KQxxx, you must have either KQJ or KQ10 heading the suit, otherwise partner throwing the Jack may cost a trick. If you have KQ753 you have to lead fourth best.

Similarly, if partner has the Ace of your suit, and can’t see the Jack in dummy, partner is obliged to overtake your King with the Ace and lead one back.

All of this means that, if you are disciplined in your leads, you will never again be faced with that difficult decision at trick two — if you are allowed to hold the trick you now know that declarer started with AJx.

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

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, December 12

1 Jane Smith/Margaret Way

2 Betsy Bailiee/Lisa Ferrari

3 John Burville/Molly Taussig

Monday, December 15

North/South

1 Duncan Silver/Marion Silver

2 William Pollett/Linda Pollett

3 Sheena Rayner/Magda Farag

East/West

1 Patricia Siddle/Diana Diel

2 Stephanie Kyme/Margaret Way

3 Judith Kitson/Gill Butterfield

Tuesday, December 16

North/South

1 Heidi Dyson/John Thorne

2 Desiree Woods/Elizabeth Caufield

East/West

1 Finn Moseley/Malcolm Moseley

2 Tracy Pitt/David Leach

Wednesday, December 17

1 Caroline Svensen/Joyce Pearson

2 Stephanie Kyme/Margaret Way

3 Judith Bussell/Martha Ferguson

Thursday, December 18

Ernie Owen Individual

1 Diana Diel

2 Heather Woolf

3 Betsy Baillie