Last night at the Hamilton Princess the final gala dinner and prize-giving brought an end to another hugely successful Bermuda Regional. Hundreds of visitors were joined by 60 to 70 locals for a week of bridge, great food, panel shows and other entertainment, and visits to the shops, bars and restaurants of Hamilton and the outer parishes.

Chairs Rachael Gosling and Steve Cosham and their committee, along with the Hamilton Princess staff and supported by a host of generous sponsors, put on an event that did us all proud.

I’ll put the full results in the column next week – there are many Bermuda successes to report.

The top strata events were, as expected, dominated by the visiting bridge professionals and their clients. The pros bring a lot of buzz to the event and with the likes of Gail Greenberg, Jeff Hand, Robert Todd and Jerry Helms returning to our shores, and being joined this year by the likes of Kevin Bathurst and Alejandro Bianchedi, it was always going to be tough for the locals to get a look-in at the top trophies.

We were also fortunate this year to have the ACBL president Margot Hennings attending – it has been a while since the sitting president has been here and Margot collected rave reviews for her friendliness and support for the attendees.

And, of course, we have to mention the great team of directors led by the also great Sol Weinstein who, this year, was attending his 51st Bermuda event as a director! Joining him was a superb director team of David Metcalfe, Nancy Strachan and Brian Weikle, together with our own Jack Rhind who is an ACBL certified director.

I recognised the entire Committee last week, but must make special mention of Janet Evans for producing the wonderful daily bulletins which are ready for the players when they wake up for breakfast – funny, informative and bright, the bulletins have become an important part of the event.

As promised, full Regional results and commentary will appear next week.

As I’ve written many times before, learning how to bid at bridge is perhaps the easiest part of the learning process – getting proficient at declarer play and defence requires a lot of time at the table, combined with some reading.

There is much that can be learnt away from the table from books and articles. One area that certainly can be studied is “card combinations” or “layouts” – learning them, however, is one thing, but putting it all into practice at the table requires 100 per cent concentration and a clear head.

Take this hand (see Figure 1) that came up at a recent game in London – you are sitting East.

The bidding was over quickly – South opened the hand one heart and North made the practical raise to four hearts. Bidding two diamonds first and then bidding four hearts with the North hand is an overbid, as it is a mild slam try and the hand is not good enough for that.

Partner leads the Queen of spades and you see the above dummy. Declarer wins the spade with the Ace and draws two rounds of trumps rounds ending in hand and now plays the nine of diamonds, partner follows with the two so you know partner has three diamonds – you duck the first diamond and win the next one – over to you!

You clearly have to switch to clubs but what card do you play? If declarer has the King of clubs there is no way to beat the contract, so you must assume partner has the King for your play to matter – and you have to hope declarer has three clubs. If partner has KQx any club will work but what if he has Kxx as in the hand shown below (see Figure 2).

Do you see it? When in with the diamond, you must switch to the Jack of clubs!

Now declarer is dead – if he ducks, you cash the Ace-King to defeat the contract, and if he covers with the Queen, partner wins the King and leads another club. With your A9 surrounding dummy’s ten, the hand is once again defeated.

If you had lazily led the Ace of clubs or, more likely a low one, declarer will always make a club trick and with it his contract – the jack is the only winning lead.

Well done!

• David Ezekiel can be contacted at davidezekiel999@gmail.com