The second session of the Mixed Pairs took place last Friday and there were no surprises.

First round leaders Jane Smith and Alan Douglas had another good session with a 61.6 per cent game and ran out as fairly comfortable winners from Jean Johnson and David Sykes who, as predicted in last week’s column, were the pair most likely to give them any trouble. Johnson/Sykes had a good 60.7 per cent second session but it was not enough.

Marge Way and Misha Novakovic also scored 60.7 per cent in the second session which pulled them into third place ahead of Rachael Gosling/Simon Giffen in fourth and Julia Lunn/David Cordon in fifth.

This is a good win for Douglas/ Smith as the field was a fairly strong one. Douglas/Smith and Johnson/Sykes are multiple winners at the club and these would have been the expected 1-2 at the outset. The three pairs completing the top five are also all pretty experienced and it reinforces what it takes to do well in these events over 48 boards instead of only 24.

Well done to Alan and Jane — Alan recently won the Men’s Pairs with Delmont Simmons, so he is on a roll, as is his partner Jane who also defended her Ladies Pairs title with Gertie Barker — quite a month for this pair.

This week’s hand is an example of really careful and thoughtful declarer play, where declarer used multiple opportunities to ensure that the danger hand never got on lead.

Dealer South Both Vulnerable

North

S J108

H AJ10

D J1054

C 852

East

S 762

H K54

D 763

C J1096

South

S AKQ943

H Q6

D AK

C K73

West

S 5

H 98732

D Q982

C AQ4

Pretty much the whole room was in 4 Spades and the normal result was down one with declarer losing the Heart finesse and then three Clubs.

Our declarer, however, did a bit better mainly because he chose to believe the opening lead.

West led the Heart 9, which pretty much marked East with the King and declarer saw the danger of the obvious Club switch.

With that in mind declarer won the Ace of Hearts, cashed the AK of Diamonds and crosses to the Spade 10. He now played the Diamond Jack and when East played low he discarded the Heart Queen.

West won and played a fourth Diamond, ruffed by East and over-ruffed by declarer, Declarer now crossed to the Spade 8 and played the Heart Jack, ruffing East’s King.

Now a Spade to the Jack, a Club discard on the Heart 10 and declarer could afford to play a Club looking for the overtrick — not to be, but making 10 tricks was a huge score.

Notice that if East had played low on the Heart Jack, declarer would have discarded a Club and even if West won the contract was safe as the Heart 10 was there as a discard for another club.

Great planning, great card management and all round great bridge.