With the successful Bermuda Sectional now behind us, the Bermuda Bridge Club now has three championship events before Christmas.

Then on the horizon we have the big event, the Bermuda Regional, which runs from January 25 to the 31 – chairwoman Rachael Gosling and her team are already hard at work on this so get your games fixed up and in the diary.

The remaining events are:

Open Teams: for all members, Saturday, November 23, two sessions starting at 9.30am. Sign up at the Club by November 19.

Novice Pairs: for members with fewer than 20 master points, Tuesday, December 3 at 7pm. Sign up at the club by November 29. There will be a concurrent Tuesday evening game if numbers are sufficient.

Individual: the Ernie Owen Individual Championship for all members on Thursday, December 19, at 7pm. Sign-up sheet will be posted in due course.

Now to this week’s hand. A lot of my readers think that I hate finesses – not really true. I take them when I have to, but only after I have exhausted other lines that may help me avoid the finesse.

In today’s hand (see Figure 1) you will see that I actually encourage a finesse …. but as always with me it’s not that straightforward!

The bidding was aggressive and over quickly.

East opened one spade, South bid two clubs, West bid two spades and when North bid five clubs, South made the hugely aggressive bid of six clubs, holding three small hearts!

West led the spade Jack – at most tables declarer ruffed the spade, drew a round of trumps, played off three diamonds hoping for the Jack to appear, and when it did not, declarer ruffed the last diamond and took the heart finesse – this lost and there was a further heart to lose – one down! Another losing finesse kills a contract!

Yes, I know I encouraged a finesse but declarer chose the wrong suit! See the full hand in Figure 2.

Declarer at just one table showed how it should be done – she ruffed the first spade, drew one trump, and then crossed to the King of diamonds to ruff dummy’s last spade. Now a diamond to the Ace left this position (see Figure 3).

Declarer now led a diamond towards dummy and inserted the ten. This won and declarer now cashed the diamond Queen, throwing a heart and then came to hand to take the heart finesse for an overtrick – this lost but the slam had been made.

Lucky? Not at all – since declarer had eliminated the spades. If the diamond ten had lost to the Jack, East is now forced to hand declarer the contract by either leading a heart into the Ace-Queen or leading a spade, in which case declarer throws a heart from hand and ruffs in dummy and the Queen of diamonds takes care of declarer’s other losing heart – contract made, and the declarer play guaranteed it would be!

So you see, I’m not against finesses …. I’m just against certain finesses!

• David Ezekiel can be reached on davidezekiel999@gmail.com

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, November 1

1. Aida Bostelmann/Heather Woolf

2= Charles Hall/Tony Saunders

2= Stephanie Kyme/Diana Diel

Monday, November 4

North/South

1. Sheena Rayner/Magda Farag

2. Peter Donnellan/Lynanne Bolton

3. Jack Rhind/Jane Smith

East/West

1. Stephanie Kyme/Charles Hall

2. Wendy Gray/Richard Gray

3. Patricia Siddle/Diana Diel

Tuesday, November 5

North/South

1. Jamie Sapsford/Jane Downing

2. Caitlin Conyers/Kim Simmons

East/West

1. Heidi Dyson Ben Stone

2. Jean Schilling/Catherine Kennedy

Thursday, November 7

North/South

1. Peter Donnellan/Lynanne Bolton

2. Elizabeth McKee/Margaret Way

3. John Glynn/Rachael Gosling