The Ernie Owen Individual was held on Thursday night and had a good field of 28 players. In a bunched finish, with only three match points separating the top five players, Sharon Shanahan and Delton Outerbridge were joint winners, continuing their run of success after their recent Open Teams win. In third place was Linda Pollett, fourth was Magda Farag and fifth was Tim Mardon. Delton and Sharon also won the B strata, and in the C, it was Delton again, ahead of Tim Mardon.

Big congratulations to the winners who are clearly progressing fast and will figure more and more in open competition – also a fine performance by C player Tim Mardon.

The event commemorates my longtime partner Ernie Owen who was a wonderful player and, for me, one of the best bidding theorists to have played the game locally – that had its downside, as hardly a session went by without Ernie tweaking our already complicated system because of some hand during the game – he is sorely missed to this day.

Now a bit of self-indulgence – I have a soft spot for individual tournaments. Back in 1981, I won the North American Individual Championship at the ACBL Summer Nationals in Boston. The win was memorable as it fell on my birthday and also made me Life Master so the bulletin headline was “Bermuda Triangle”!

I had some great partners sit opposite me in that event over the two sessions, and some not so great opponents sitting to my left and right, all of which resulted in 26 plus scores out of 27 boards in the second session!

On the last board we got into an absolutely horrible 7NT contract – the opening lead knocked out my only stopper in hearts and my club suit was AQJ8765 opposite a singleton, so I needed exactly Kx of clubs under the AQ … notice that singleton King was not good enough … and just like the infamous Belladonna-Garozzo hand in the 1975 Bermuda Bowl, my left hand opponent held exactly Kx and the slam rolled home – you need a bit of that in these big events!

Earlier this week, The Novice Pairs was cancelled due to lack of interest – or it may be that the natural ego of bridge players prevented many from admitting to be a novice!

Also taking place last week was an event that the World Bridge Federation is holding online. It is a teams event, organised for the smaller countries who are members of the WBF, and 31 countries have entered from the world's eight zones. The event finishes tonight and I will provide a full report next week.

Today’s hand (see Figure 1) is interesting – declarer has just one entry to dummy and has to decide how to use it – the first declarer made the “obvious” play and went down, whilst the second declarer did some real thinking and came up with a line of play that was vastly superior, and was duly rewarded.

South had to look at his hand a few times as it is not often one picks up a shapely hand with a great six-card suit and 27 high card points!

South opened two clubs, a strong bid, North bid the expected negative two diamonds, South bid two spades (100 per cent forcing for one round, no matter how weak North was) and North happily raised to four spades. South now had no hesitation in jumping to the spade slam.

The hand came up in a team game and the bidding was the same in both rooms.

Both declarers received the opening lead of the ten of diamonds. The first declarer took this with Ace of diamonds and cashed the Ace of trumps. Next, he played the Jack of trumps to dummy’s Queen and led a club to his Queen.

West took this with the King and exited with a diamond. Declarer’s only hope was that the Jack of clubs would fall under his Ace. When that failed to materialise, he was down one.

At the second table, declarer thought a bit deeper before playing to the second trick. He first cashed the Ace of hearts after winning the first trick with the Ace of diamonds. Next, he led his Jack of trumps to dummy’s Queen.

However, instead of playing a club to his Queen, he ruffed dummy’s remaining heart, eliminating the suit. Continuing with this theme, declarer cashed the King and Queen of diamonds, leaving the position shown in Figure 2.

Now, with the preliminary work done, declarer led the two of clubs towards the table. West put up his jack to win the trick. However, he was now end-played. It did not matter whether he led a club or a red suit (conceding a ruff-and-discard), declarer would make his contract.

How does the second line compare with the first? The first will win if the club finesse wins or the Jack of clubs is singleton or doubleton – about 55 per cent. The elimination-centred approach of the second declarer would succeed whenever West held the Jack of clubs and also when East began with the King of clubs (after he won the Jack of clubs, his only potentially safe exit is a club).

So, the only time declarer can go down is if West held the King of clubs and East held the Jack! That offers almost a three-in-four chance of making a 12th trick – actually it is about 74 per cent – but who’s counting?

Wonderfully well planned and executed by South.

• David Ezekiel can be contacted at davidezekiel999@gmail.com

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, December 13

North/South

1. Gertrude Barker/Martha Ferguson

2. Tony Saunders/Patricia Siddle

East/West

1. Sancia Garrison/Jane Smith

2. Kathleen Keane/Carol Jones

Monday, December 16

1. William Pollett/Linda Pollett

2. Barbara Cerra/Patrick Cerra

3. Peter Donnellan/Lynanne Bolton

Tuesday, December 17

1. Carol Eastham/Veronica Boyce

2. Heidi Dyson/Kerri McKittrick

3. Jean Schilling/Catherine Kennedy

Wednesday, December 18

1. Diana Diel/Patricia Siddle

2. Charles Hall/Margaret Way (Tied 2nd)

3. Lynanne Bolton/Heather Woolf (Tied 2nd)

Thursday, December 19

Ernie Owen Individual

1= Delton Outerbridge

1= Sharon Shanahan

3. Linda Pollett

GRANAWAY BRIDGE CLUB

Wednesday, December 18

North/South

1. Getrude Barker/Molly Taussig

2. Betsy Baillie/Delton Outerbridge

3. Claude Guay/Sharon Shanahan

East/West

1. Stephanie Kyme/Diana Diel

2. Heather Woolf/Aida Bostelmann

3. Rachael Gosling/Elizabeth McKee