The Audrey Grant teaching team has now left Bermuda, and after the five days at the Bridge Club they will have left an indelible impact on the local bridge scene. The team delivered on the high expectations that built up before the visit and it would be a real surprise if this did not become an annual feature in the local bridge calendar.

Ms Grant and her team led a “Bridge for Beginners Workshop” which started last Saturday and ended with a duplicate game for beginners on Wednesday.

This may not seem special at first glance, but to those who know bridge it is a remarkable achievement. To have imparted enough information and knowledge to a group of people, 90 per cent of whom have never played bridge before, so that they can embark on playing a duplicate game, is more than remarkable.

The beginners had attended only four of a 20-lesson series by Wednesday evening, the remaining 16 being scheduled on a weekly basis led by the local teachers, who themselves will have picked up much from seeing Ms Grant at work.

The progress during the week will also be hugely encouraging to these club members who have worked hard and given their time to teach lessons and encourage new players and club members.

Ms Grant’s lessons attracted a record 45 beginners to register and the feedback has been extremely positive. Importantly, the students are having fun and are learning by actually playing, not simply studying bridge theory, which is one of the defining features of Ms Grant’s system.

All of this will certainly provide a much-needed boost for those who are trying to grow the game in Bermuda and protect the future of the Bridge Club.

Ms Grant also ran a teacher training seminar for interested members who would like to lead or help in future bridge lesson series. Those members have been awarded bridge teacher certifications by Ms Grant.

All in all a milestone week for the club, and Ms Grant and her team will have added a good number of players to their already large following.

This week’s hand is a lesson in skill and perseverance, where declarer brings in what looks like a hopeless slam due to the bad trump break (see the hand in Figure 1 and the bidding in Figure 2).

The bidding was good – After South made a move towards slam with his cue bid of the four of clubs, North appreciated that his hand had improved as a result, and so made a return cue bid of the four of diamonds. South then checked on key cards with 4NT before bidding the slam in spades. West led a third-highest five of hearts.

Declarer took this with dummy’s Ace and then cashed the three top spades, which revealed that he had a sure loser in trumps – at this point most declarers would mentally give up and go through the motions to go down one.

This declarer, however, realised that there was a hope to make his contract if he could ruff dummy’s hearts with low trumps and to score six tricks in the minors.

This needed the cards to lie well, but when things are desperate you have to play hoping that the cards lie exactly like you want them.

So, declarer continued with a low club to dummy’s King to ruff a heart. Next he cashed his Ace of clubs and led a low club towards dummy.

Now he made the key play – since he needed to score four club tricks to make his contract, he covered West’s low club with dummy’s ten. (If clubs had been 3-3, West would ruff the fourth club and declarer would still have to lose a diamond.)

When that held and East discarded, declarer played the Queen of clubs before ruffing dummy’s remaining heart. As West was marked with an original 4=3=2=4 shape, declarer confidently took his eleventh and twelfth tricks with the Ace and King of diamonds. East’s diamond winner and West’s Jack of trumps fell on the remaining trick.

Good bidding followed by just brilliant play! The lesson is simple – when things look too good look hard for something that can go wrong, and when things look awful look for a lie of the cards that are exactly like you want them – that paid off here!

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, September 13

1. Stephen Cosham/Rachael Gosling

2. Jane Smith/Sancia Garrison

3. Judy King/Martha Ferguson

Monday, September 16

1. Louise Rodger/Molly Taussig

2. Richard Gray/Wendy Gray

3. Gertrude Barker/Jane Smith

Tuesday, September 17

1. Heidi Dyson/Kerri McKittrick

2. Malcolm Mosely/Mark Stevens

Wednesday, September 18

1. Gertrude Barker/Jane Smith

2. Desmond Nash/Lisa Rhind

3. Patricia Siddle/Diana Diel

Thursday, September 19

1. Gertrude Barker/John Glynn

2. Charles Hall/Molly Taussig

3. James Mulderig/Robert Mulderig