Juniors get chance to excel

Royal Gazette Staff

Created: Apr 08, 2005 11:00 AM

BRIDGE in Bermuda is thriving at the lower and middle levels and much of this is due to the various series of lessons being put on at the club. These players will have a chance to prove themselves next week when the Juniors (under 20 master points) and Non-Life Masters (under 300) Pairs Championships take place at the Bridge Club on Wednesday, April 13 and 20.

LAST Saturday produced something new at the Bridge Club when a sold-out event saw some 40 pairs play 12 interesting (some may say too interesting!) hands, followed by a lively panel discussion led by David Ezekiel and Roman Smolski. Preceding the bridge was a good buffet dinner and the whole evening was free of charge, thanks to the education fund set up some five years ago with a sizeable contribution from the Orbis Group.

Orbis deserves our thanks, as does Kevin Comeau, who was the originator and organiser of the event and who puts in a lot of time promoting bridge on the island. Roman and Vera Petty also did a great job in putting together and dealing the hands.

I think the evening was a real success and with a bit of tweaking the next one, which I hope will be before the summer, should be even better — so stay tuned!

On Saturday we talked about bidding, declarer play, defence and leads and the last one, leads, usually gives players trouble. I am a fan of frequent trump leads, unless there is another obvious lead, on the basis that declarer is in a trump contract for a reason and the trump suit is usually good enough for the lead to not give anything away.

I couldn’t lead away from the queen, jack or ten as that may give declarer an option he never had before.

This hand caught my interest as a trump lead is the only one to give the defence a chance.North

[spade]A 10 5 3

[heart]A 8 5

[diamond]Q 7

[club]9 7 5 2

West East<$>

[spade]J 9 8 2 [spade]Q 7 6

[heart]7 4 [heart]Q 6 3

[diamond]K 8 5 4 [diamond]A J 9 2

[club]A Q 4 [club]8 6 3

South

[spade]K 4

[heart]K J 10 9 2

[diamond]10 6 3

[club]K J 10South North<$>

1[heart] (1) 1NT (2)

2[club] (3) 3[heart] (4)

Pass (5)

1. Super light opening

2. Forcing

3. Shows clubs or a hand with no other suit

4. Invitational to game

5. A good refusal!

West, with no appealing lead, led a trump which came around to declarer’s nine. West won the diamond shift with the king to play another trump which declarer won in dummy to play a club to the jack and queen. West now continued the great defence by playing a diamond to partner’s ace and a third trump sank the contract as declarer now loses three diamonds and two clubs.

Declarer was unlucky that West found the trump lead but could have countered — can you see how? Since the trump lead places the queen with East win the first trump with ace and play clubs. Now the fourth club sets up in time for a diamond discard — the play is tricky but it works.

See you tomorrow night!

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Juniors get chance to excel