While bidding may be the most important part of winning bridge, followed by declarer play and then defence, it is by far the easiest of the three disciplines to learn.

The key to good bidding is work and discipline – learn your system well and then stick to it almost religiously – there is no guarantee of any perfect outcomes, but what you are trying to do is make decisions that are always better than the 50/50 choice, and that will gain you bushels of points in the long term.

The hardest part of bridge by far is declarer play, because only so much of it can be learnt from books – getting better comes from playing a lot, looking at your results and trying not to repeat the mistakes you have made.

That means you have to go through the hands after you have played them – many players are too lazy to do that, so their complaints on how hard it is to improve should be directed to themselves!

Expert declarers rarely make mistakes in the play – they might once in a while make a play that is less than 50 per cent but that does happen often.

When they play the hand they make each decision based on the evidence so far and their knowledge of similar situations in the past – they review the bidding, or lack of it, by the opponents and the play so far ahead of any crucial decision.

Quite often the “evidence” is an “inference” based on previous experience, and some of that is in play in today’s hand which came up at the club.

The hand (see Figure 1) comes from the Monday afternoon game on November 4 – it looks straightforward but has a real lesson embedded in it.

The entire field of ten Souths were in the contract of four spades – South usually opened a spade, West often bid three diamonds as an overcall with a non-opening hand, and North jumped to four Spades, which became the final contract.

The defence started the same way at every table – West led the Ace- King of diamonds and when East played high low to show a doubleton diamond behind dummy, West continued with the diamond Jack.

Remarkably, nine declarers chose to ruff with the spade Jack which was overruffed by the Queen – now the heart loser led to down one!

See the full hand in Figure 2.

At the tenth table, Jack Rhind saw it differently and ruffed the third diamond with the spade King! He now played the Jack of spades and finessed the queen – contract made! Well done !

Was this just a 50/50 choice as to who has the spade Queen? I don’t think so, based partly on the bidding and on the play.

If West did bid three diamonds and has already shown up with eight points it would, marginally, suggest that East had the spade Queen. Secondly, once East shows up with only two diamonds the odds, again marginally, suggest that he would have more spades than West and is therefore more likely to hold the Queen. Combine those two facts and the third-round ruff with the King and then the finesse makes a ton of sense.

So nine pairs went -100 and Jack chalked up plus 620 for a total top – great stuff! There was no guarantee that his play would work, but bridge is all about making the plays that are better than 50 per cent and all the evidence led to the correct play – really satisfying when the odds-on play works!

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

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, November 8

1. Betsy Baillie/Delton Outerbridge

2. Stephanie Kyme/Diana Diel

3. Peter Donnellan/Charles Hall

Monday, November 11

North/South

1. Richard Gray/Wendy Gray

2. Diana Diel/Patricia Siddle

3. Peter Donnellan/Lynanne Bolton

East/West

1. Gertrude Barker/Jane Smith

2. David Cordon/Heather Woolf

3. Sancia Garrison/Delton Outerbridge

Tuesday, November 12

North/South

1. Malcolm Mosely/Mark Stevens

2. Caitlin Conyers/Kim Simmons

3. Richard Bruton/Davina Dickenson

East/West

1. Jamie Ferrari Willis/Edward Willis

2. Amanda Ingham/Heidi Dyson

3. Louise Neame/Richard Neame

Wednesday, November 13

1. Judy King/Martha Ferguson

2. Richard Gray/Wendy Gray

3. Jack Rhind/Gertrude Barker

Thursday, November 14

1. Martha Ferguson/Judy King

2. Gertrude barker/John Glynn

3. Wenda Krupp/Jane Gregory