Last Thursday night at the Club saw the local session of the ACBL Instant Matchpoint game, an interesting format where the matchpoints are determined by reference to a “par” tabulation as opposed to the other results in the room, as is usual.Winning the event with a 65.62 percent game were John Hoskins-John Rayner with Michael Tait-Jane Clipper close behind with 63.58 percent followed by Gill Gray- Pat Siddle on 58.19 percent, David Cordon-Julia Lunn on 57.68 percent and Lynanne Bolton-Peter Donellan on 57.12 percent. There was a good turnout of 14 tables so congratulations to the two Johns and the other placing pairs.Next up on October 16 and October 18 is the two-session Junior Teams event for players with less than 100 Masterpoints …. this is usually a competitive affair and I will bring you the results in the column of October 27 as the event finishes after my deadline for next week’s column.Is a contract ever totally hopeless? Yes, of course, many are , but once in a while a little bit of genius, sleight of hand, call it whatever you wish, can rescue a totally hopeless situation. Witness this hand that came up in a high stakes rubber game many years ago :Board 3. E/W Vul. Dealer SouthS-K1063H-KQJ10D-632C-63S-A42 S-QJH-987 H-632D-KQJ10 D-98754C-985 C-742S-9875H-A54D-AC-AKQJ10South opened 1C, North responded 1H and raised South’s 1S bid to 2S ... that was enough for South who now drove to the hopeless spade slam .West led the D-K and declarer surveyed dummy with despair as there was clearly no way to avoid at least two losers in trumps …or was there? What do you think?Our declarer hatched a plan which required the spades to be exactly as in the diagram … and the cooperation of the opponents But you can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket, so some plan is better than none !He won the diamond lead, cashed the heart Ace and led a low spade looking for all the world like a man with a singleton Ace of hearts who was now looking to discard diamond losers on dummy’s hearts. West was having none of that! He grabbed his trump Ace, felling partner’s jack and tried to cash a diamond … declarer ruffed , played a spade to the King dropping the queen, drew the last trump and claimed!West’s play was not that unreasonable … switch declarer’s heart and diamond holdings and, without knowing the trump situation, going up with the Ace would be essential .So the next time you are in a ‘hopeless’ contract …..think back to this hand!