Mark January 10 in your diary if you want to learn more about this game or if you are just a bridge junkie and want to be in a room where people are talking bridge!

I will be talking on “How to maximise your game at the table” — it will start at 1.30pm and end at 3.30pm at Bermuda Bridge Club.

I will be talking more about the general approach and mindset one needs in order to squeeze more points out of every session, and will also cover the various questions sent to me between now and the start of the lecture.

A lot of it will be about bidding, followed by defence and then probably a bit less on declarer play. Improving declarer is largely done by playing as often as you can and learning at the table, but I will cover key plays that all declarers must know in order to succeed.

If you are attending, sign up at the Bridge Club if you are a member, or e-mail me at the address below if you are a non-member. I’m also asking all attendees to feel free to request one area of the game that they would like me to cover and I will try and work those in.

Last week I covered the results of the Ernie Owen Individual Championship, which was won by Diana Diel, and I mentioned my soft spot for Individuals based largely on my win in the 1981 North American Championship in Boston!

I dug out the Bulletin from that day and was reminded that the directors needed one more for a full field and persuaded me to join. There were 723 players in the field — I was lying well after the first session and then had a magical second session where just about everything went right and when I did need Lady Luck on my side, she obliged.

I remember having 23 plus scores out of 24 on my card and the only minus was -200 when our opponents stayed out of cold game that the rest of the field had bid! All of that led to a score of 192 on a 132 average, or a 73 per cent game.

Lady Luck was sitting on my shoulder on the hand covered by the Bulletin, where a shocking last bid by my partner forced me to bid a nerve-jangling Grand Slam in No Trump which should have been punished, but wasn’t.

It was a good field but my partner on this board was not the strongest I had all day — we came out unscathed on the first hand but then came this little monster….. I was sitting South. See the hand in Figure 1 and the bidding in Figure 2.

I didn’t like bidding No Trump with a singleton but I thought it most descriptive of my hand and would allow partner to use Stayman, which she did, or so I thought. Once she bid spades we were heading for slam, and after finding out that we were missing one key card I signed off in six spades, only to hear a bid of seven clubs from partner!

Partner’s seven-club bid was then nothing less than outrageous as we could have been missing an Ace. Looking at my hand, and the singleton club which was worthless in a club contract, I bid 7NT, which was probably in danger of going down more than seven clubs but, more importantly, had to have the same chance of making.

West had a no-brainer lead of a club (against grand slams one makes the most passive lead you can find — no “fourth best” and no leading away from an honour) but weirdly led a diamond —  and things did not look great.

The rule for bidding a Grand Slam is that you should basically be able to claim 13 tricks before you see dummy — and that clearly was not the case here! The slam was basically 50-50 depending on who held the King of spades, but the heavy spades in dummy meant that the play needed to be handled carefully.

The Jack of diamonds held but that did me no good, as I needed an entry to my hand so I won with the Ace, played the Queen of spades and closed my eyes and ran it when West played low.

When this held I still had to be careful in case West had four spades — cash the Ace of hearts throwing a spade and only now repeat the spade finesse — 13 tricks and a clear undeserved top as no one else in the room was in this silly contract!

That old cliché comes to mind — better lucky than good!

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

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, December 19

1 Jane Smith/Sancia Garrison

2 Tony Saunders/Margaret Way

3 Betsy Baillie/Heather Woolf

Monday, December 22

North/South

1 Peter Donnellan/Lynanne Bolton

2 Louise Rodger/Molly Taussig

3 Elysa Burland/Heather Woolf

East/West

1 Sancia Garrison/Jane Smith

2 Elaine Henderson/Peter Henderson

3 Judith Bussell/Bernadette Coates

Tuesday, December 23

1 Jamie Sapsford/Jane Dowling

2 Felicity Lund/Linda Manders

3 John Thorne/Heidi Dyson

Wednesday, December 24

1 Lynanne Bolton/Heather Woolf

2 Stephen Cosham/Judy King

3 Peter Donnellan/Betsy Baillie