Straight into the hand today as I am, once again, travelling!

Next week I’ll bring you the results of the Novice Pairs Championship which will be held next Tuesday at 7pm, if there are sufficient pairs signed up. Later next week will be the two-session Mixed Pairs Championship, with both sessions being held on Saturday May 16, starting at 9.30am.

It is rare that you want to tell the defenders all about your hand if you don’t have to, but today’s declarer, a wily veteran, saw a good reason to do so (see the hand in Figure 1).

This hand came up in a pairs game — South opened two clubs and when partner responded 2NT, showing values in a balanced hand, he checked on Aces and, hearing that partner had one, bid the diamond slam — West led the heart Queen.

Declarer could see that at some point he would have to lead a spade and try and guess the Ace/Queen, but like any expert declarer he decided to give the opponents, particularly West, a chance to help him.

Declarer won the Ace of hearts and drew three rounds of trump — the unnecessary third round was to make sure that West knew he had 6 diamonds. He now played 4 rounds of clubs and discarded dummy’s heart — this immediately made West think that declarer had another heart in his hand to ruff, so West now thought he knew declarer’s hand — 6 diamonds, 4 Clubs, 2 hearts, leaving room for only one spade. Now when Declarer eventually led a spade West, clever soul that he was, jumped up with the Ace to make sure declarer didn’t make an overtrick! That neatly solved declarer’s problem!

Great thinking by declarer and he was lucky he had a defender on his left that was good enough to count! Squeezing out every possible advantage at the table, and giving the opponents a chance to help you, will get you bushels of match points

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

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, May 1

North/South

1 John F W Glynn/Molly Taussig

2 Tony Saunders/Patricia Siddle

East/West

1 Gertrude Barker/Sharon Shanahan

2 Judith Bussell/Martha Ferguson

Monday, May 4

North/South

1 Peter Donnellan/Lynanne Bolton

2 Betsy Baillie/Joyce Pearson

3 Aida Bostelmann/Allyson Eadie

East/West

1 Charles Hall/Desmond Nash

2 Patricia Siddle/Diana Diel

3 Sancia Garrison/Jane Smith

Tuesday, May 5

North/South

1 Sally Irvine/Sandra Ogden

2= Keri McKittrick/Tim McKittrick

2= Tracey Pitt/David Leach

East/West

1 Julia Tadman/Joshimar Hussey

2 Sarah Bowers/Stuart Clare

3 Gareth Cooper/Ross Cooper

Wednesday, May 6

1 Geoff Bell/Molly Taussig

2 Charles Hall/Margaret Way

3 Desmond Nash/Jane Smith

Thursday, May 7

1 Miodrag Novakovic/Margaret Way

2 Charles Hall/Martha Ferguson

3 John F W Glynn/Sancia Garrison