Well, the day has arrived and at 1.30pm today I’ll be giving a two-hour talk at the Bridge Club on “How to maximise your ability at the table”.

The talk will be a bit different to the one I gave a couple of years ago in that it will be more “big picture” in terms of how one approaches the game and then how one makes the right decisions on bidding, declarer play and defence.

The session is open to all, so turn up if interested — if you have a particular topic you would like me to address, send it to the e-mail below.

A couple of people who were beginners, or looking to learn the game contacted me. Coincidentally, the Bridge Club issued a notice yesterday about a new set of lessons which should suit those who are in the early stages of the game, or just need a refresher on the basics.

Steve Cosham is running “Slow play bridge lessons/play”on Tuesday nights between 6:45pm and 9pm, with the people who have just finished his latest set of lessons (alongside the regular Tuesday game).

All are welcome, with or without a partner. Contact Steve at stephencosham@gmail.com for more information.

One of the topics I will be covering on the play of the hand will be “elimination plays”, or “end plays”, where you give the opponents the lead at just the right time and force them to help you — as in the hand and bidding in Figure 1.

North's first bid was a Jacoby-style game-forcing raise in spades, with at least four-card support. South’s rebid showed a minimum without a shortage in a side suit. North checked on keycards, finding two of them opposite, before bidding the slam. West led the Jack of hearts.

Declarer saw that North had conducted a power auction to the spade slam and, consequently, West was unlikely to have led from the King of hearts on such a sequence, where a passive lead was always likely to be better.

Declarer could see 11 tricks on top with options for a twelfth. Further, the abundance of trumps and the ability to eliminate the club suit screamed that he should look to an elimination play for his slam-going trick.

So, declarer played the eight of hearts from dummy at trick one, won the Ace of hearts and then drew trumps with the Ace and King. Next, he cashed the Queen, King and Ace of clubs, discarding a heart from hand. After ruffing dummy’s remaining club this was the position (see Figure 2).

Declarer now exited with a heart to dummy’s Queen and East’s King. East was endplayed, forced to lead a red suit. If it was a heart, declarer would ruff in hand and discard dummy’s four of diamonds before claiming 12 tricks. At the table, East found the best exit of a low diamond, and declarer's ten of diamonds won the trick for the contract.

Of course, if West did turn up with a surprising King of hearts, then the contract would succeed or fail on the location of the King of diamonds.

The key here was not making the useless play of the Queen of hearts at trick one — had declarer done so West would win the heart exit and lead a diamond, defeating the contract.

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

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, January 2

1 Stephanie Kyme/Diana Diel

2 Tony Saunders/Margaret Way

3= John F W Glynn/Molly Taussig

3= Allyson Eadie/Aida /Bostelmann

Monday, January 5

North/South

1 Tony Saunders/Lynanne Bolton

2 Louise Rodger/Molly Taussig

3 Geoff Bell/Kathleen Bell

East/West

1 Sancia Garrison/Jane Smith

2 Patricia Siddle/Diana Diel

3 Lorna Anderson/Heather Woolf

Tuesday, January 6

1 Ross Cooper/Desiree Woods

2 Tim McKittrick/Keri McKittrick

3 Tracy Pitt/Kim Simmons