There is all sorts of festive stuff left to do at the Bridge Club, with the major of tournaments all decided.

The prizegiving will, as usual, take place at the Christmas Party on the 10th ... just before the bridge game.

As mentioned before, all the Player of The Year titles will be announced at the prizegiving and I will bring you the winners in a future column.

A few other things are happening. Diana Diel will talk on “When to Sacrifice” on Tuesday (December 6) at 7pm before the game, and then on the 13th, Misha Novakovic will talk on “Cuebids”. Cuebids are an essential part of the game, but be ready sometime in the future to play in a 2-1 trump fit — we have all been there!

On Thursday the 15th there will be a social evening of bridge. It will be a Junior-Senior game starting at 7.30pm followed at about 10pm by a Wine Tasting courtesy of Pitt and Company. It should be fun, and perhaps safer than having the wine tasting first!

This week’s hand is good for both bidding and play: open pdf link under “Related Media” to view the hand.

After the 1NT bid by South, the 2 clubs by North was NMF (New Minor Forcing) which asks South if she has a 3-card spade support. South denies this by not bidding two spades and at the same time shows a 4-card heart suit.

If South did not have four hearts, she would deny three spades by bidding 2NT. North had heard enough — there was clearly no fit and with 17HCP opposite an opening hand he jumped to 6NT knowing that it would probably be a struggle.

West led the spade nine, which was ominous. If South tried the spades first and they did not break, there would be no recovery. So she decided to develop some options. Winning the spade, declarer came to hand with a diamond and led the seven of clubs — West was in a Morton’s Fork. Two options, both losing ones.

If West goes up with the King, the contract makes with three spades, four hearts, two diamonds and three clubs with the fall of both rounded suit jacks!

If West plays, low declarer wins the club queen and now plays on spades, making the hand with four spades, four hearts, two diamonds and two clubs.

You may ask whether declarer would play the club 10 if West plays smoothly low on the Club, but not on this hand as even if the 10 draws the club King there are not enough tricks.

Really nice play hand, but what it shows is how difficult it is to garner 12 tricks on two hands that don’t fit — even with a lot of HCP.

So be warned on these marginal slams — taking a plus score plus overtricks in 3NT is often the recommended route.