Both first-session leaders held on in the Men's and Ladies' Pairs Championships at the Bermuda Bridge Club with Alan Douglas-Bill Tucker and Jean Johnson-Marge Way finishing on top after the second session.

In the Men's event, Tucker and Douglas led the field with 48 after the first session from Tony Saunders and David Pereira on 43. The second session saw John Rayner and Simon Giffen finishing on top to move into fourth place overall with Roman Smolski and David Sykes, who had a bad first session, putting in a charge to end up in second place overall, just two points behind the winners. Saunders and Pereira finished in third place.

In the Ladies' Pairs the scenario was almost exactly replicated. Johnson and Way led the first session with 78 points from Julia Lunn and Janice Trott on 74 and Judy Bussell and Stephanie Kyme on 64.

In the second session Elisabeth McKee and Rachael Gosling pulled themselves into fourth overall with a good session with Kyme and Bussell doing well to get into second overall just six points behind Johnson and Way, who held on for the win. Trott and Lunn finished in third, a good performance.

Congratulations to Tucker-Douglas and Johnson-Way ¿ both pairs were among the favourites to win and did well to follow through.

This week's hand is another elimination play ¿ I make no apologies for that as the opportunity for elimination plays comes up every so often and I want you to start looking for them!

Dealer South. E/W Vulnerable.

North

" J 7 6 2

J 8 6 4

9 2

K 8 7

West East

&Copy; 5 " 10 4

K 10 9 7 5

K 10 6 5 Q J 8 7 4 3

Q J 10 4 9 6 5 3

South

" A K Q 9 8 3

A Q 3 2

A

A 2

West North East South

2

Pass 2 Pass 2"

Pass 3" Pass 3NT

Pass 4 Pass 4

Pass 4" Pass 6

Pass Pass Pass

The auction was fairly straightforward, with South's three no-trump bid requesting a cue bid. North showed a control in clubs but denied one in hearts, which was enough for South to bid the small slam in spades.

West led the queen of clubs. Declarer won in hand with the ace and cashed the ace of trumps. When both opponents followed, he put his plan of an elimination play into action.

After cashing the ace of diamonds, he crossed to dummy by playing the eight of trumps to dummy's jack and ruffed the nine of diamonds with the king of trumps. Next he cashed the king of clubs and ruffed dummy's remaining club with the queen of trumps.

As both minor suits had been eliminated, declarer demonstrated the way to make at least three tricks in hearts, by crossing to dummy and leading the carefully preserved three of trumps to the six and then leading the four of hearts to his queen.

West took this with the king and, as he had a count of the South hand as originally a 6=4=2=1 shape, he could see that returning the ten or nine of hearts was useless; declarer would win in hand with the ace and finesse dummy's eight of hearts on the way back. So he tried a tricky seven of hearts. However, when declarer called for dummy's eight of hearts, West conceded the rest of the tricks.

If the queen of hearts had held, declarer planned to lead the two of hearts towards dummy, intending to duck in dummy if West showed out East would then have to win the trick and give declarer his 12th trick either leading away from the king of hearts or by conceding a ruff and discard.

Of course, if West followed to the second round of hearts with a low card, declarer would call for dummy's jack of hearts. This would hold if west had the king of hearts and if East had that card, the suit would have been 3-2 originally, giving declarer three heart tricks.

So, no matter how the hearts divided, declarer found a plan to make certain of his contract unless a defender had started with ten diamonds and forgot to bid!