After what feels like a century I’m travelling this week, armed with golf clubs, masks, wipes, negative Covid-19 test results, a double-jab certificate and a Taser gun for any non- vaccinated person that tries to invade my space – I will try and get in some online games during my travels to feed my addiction, as many of us need a regular fix to keep us going.

This week’s hand is short and simple in the extreme, but is ever so important and if you take the lesson from it you will gain bushels of match points at the table.

The hand has to do with defensive signals – now don’t let your eyes glaze over as I am not suggesting anything complex – just a very simple method of communicating with your partner in defence (see Figure 1).

South had a pretty yucky 15 points but had to open 1NT and North had an easy raise to 3NT.

West led the heart 3 and East won the Ace and returned a heart – West won with the King and lazily led back the heart 2 to clear the suit. Declarer now played the diamond 10 and ran it to East’s king. East now looked at dummy and returned the ‘obvious’ club – curtains! A very grateful declarer wrapped up nine tricks to make the contract.

The fault here lies entirely with West – after winning the King of hearts West should exit with the spade 10 to indicate to partner that his entry was in the higher ranking of the remaining suits, spades and clubs – now East cannot go wrong and the spade return defeats the contract by two tricks.

Not that difficult is it? So make sure you adopt these simple suit preference signals with your partners and it will pay huge dividends at the table.

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, April 16

North/South

1. Linda Pollett - Bill Pollett

2. Julia Beach - Pat Colmet

3. Wenda Krupp - Jane Gregory

East/West

1. Jane Smith - Alan Douglas

2. Charles Hall - Peter Donnellan

3. Pat Siddle - Louise Rodger

Saturday, April 17

1. Joyce Pearson - Sarah Lorimer Turner

2. Katrina Van Palt - Kathleen Keane

3. Lisa Ferrari - Rosemary Smith

Sunday, April 18

1. Gertie Barker - Jane Smith

2. Magda Farag - Sheena Rayner

3. Rachel Gosling - Stephan Julius burger

Monday, April 19

1. Magda Farag - Sheena Rayner

2. Marge Way - Ed Betteto

3. Linda Pollett - Bill Pollett

Tuesday, April 20

1. Malcolm Moseley - Mark Stevens

2. Wenda Krupp - Jane Gregory

3. Veronica Boyce - Carol Eastham

Wednesday, April 21

1. Gertie Barker - Jane Smith

2. Marge Way - Charles Hall

3. Lorna Anderson - Joyce Pearson

Thursday, April 22

1. Elizabeth McKee - Linda Pollett

2. Tracy Nash - Desmond Nash

3. Wenda Krupp - Jane Gregory

Friday, April 23

1. Wendy Gray - Richard Gray

2. Louise Rodger - Gill Gray

3. Inger Mesna - George Correia

Non-Bridge Club online results for Bridge Club Members

Gill Butterfield - Judy Kitson - 72.8 per cent game coming