The Junior Open Teams competition concluded at the Bridge Club last Thursday and ended in a resounding victory for the team of Lorna Anderson-Margaret Kirk-Kath Bell-Geoff Bell. A total of six teams entered and that meant ten five board matches for each team, and those short matches can be dangerous, but the winners sailed through with eight wins out of the 10 and they even collected good points in their two losses. The winners ended with 136 victory points out of 200 and in second place with five wins and 117 victory points were the team of Inger Mensa-George Correia-Danielle Cloutier-Mark Crampton, a good performance by this quartet .Congratulations to the winners who are all regular winners and are probably ready to step up to the next level — their performance in this event and others has been really consistent and that is what is needed in the Open game .Declarer play at bridge is often an interesting balance … when things look good one takes out insurance and when things look bad one has to hope for the best … and when matters are in the balance declarer has to keep looking for ways to increase the chances of success — how does one turn a 50 percent chance into a 60 percent or 70 percent chance? Today’s hand falls squarely into that category.Board 5. N/S Vul. Dealer North.S-Q84H-Q105D-AK76C-A62S-J1062 S-K5H-62 H- 3D-108542 D-J9C-95 C-KQJ10743S-A973H-AKJ974D-Q3C-8WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH1NT 3C 3HPass 4C Pass 4HPass 5D Pass 6HThe bidding was good with North’s 4C bid starting a cue bidding sequence to the slam.West led the queen of clubs …. declarer can count 11 tricks and will have twelve if West had the spade king, quite likely on the bidding. Declarer, however, was an experienced player who was ready to put in the work to look for an extra chance in case East had the spade king so he embarked on an elimination play. At trick two he ruffed a club with the trump nine, and then played Ace and queen of trumps finding trumps 2-2 . After ruffing dummy’s last club declarer cashed three top diamonds discarding a spade from hand. Declarer now ruffed the last diamond and played the Ace of Spades and a spade to the queen …. this lost to the king but with only clubs remaining in his hand East had to provide declarer with a ruff and discard and the spade loser disappeared!Great play by declarer …. he saw the opportunity and then made the effort to execute it perfectly!