Happy new year to you all! I hope 2025 brings you all good things at and away from the table, although this column is more concerned about the “at“!

So, a totally random menu of bridge new year’s resolutions to choose from, pretty much in order of importance:

• I will try and be a better player on January 1, 2026 than I am now

• I will go through a post-mortem with my partner after every game to see what mistakes we made, so we can avoid repeating them week after week – and then the week after

• I will take some time away from the table to practise bidding with my partner – a good way to do this is to get a pack of cards, remove the twos, threes, fours and fives and deal two hands and see whether you can get to the right contract

• I will go through every item on my partnership convention card with partner to refresh our memory on what we play

• When I am declarer, I will develop a plan before playing to the first trick

• I will try to do something other than drawing trump at tricks two, three and four

• I will be consistent with my leading style based on the bidding

• I will be patient in defence and not try to beat the contract in the first three tricks – this one should actually go higher up the list as it is the major failing in intermediate defenders. Let declarer play the hand to make the contract without your help, getting too busy in defence is a deadly failing – give declarer what belongs to declarer and then sit and wait for your tricks

• I will not be intimidated when a “good” pair comes to the table – I will stay involved and not be pushed around in the bidding

• I will double a bit more, especially when the opponents try and steal the contract in the bidding – example, two opponents who both passed initially, eventually bid to four spades over your four-heart contract – you have to either bid five hearts or double – pass is not an option. If you double and they make it, I can guarantee that the result will be only a bit worse than if they made it undoubled – so you must try and extract the maximum if they go down

• No matter how good I think I am, I will know there is massive room for improvement, so I can fulfil the first resolution to try and be a better player a year from now

In keeping with the fifth resolution above, I’ve written a hundred times in this column of the need for thought and planning when playing a bridge hand – when everything looks rosy you have to search for possible dangers and protect against them, and when things look hopeless you have to visualise the ideal holding of cards in the opponents’ hands and play as if they lay that way.

Too often declarers assume the cards will lie kindly, even when the bidding warns them there is a danger that they will not. Today’s hand (see Figure 1) falls into that category.

East’s overcall of two hearts promised five hearts and at least four cards in one of the minors. South forced to game with a natural three spades and North had an easy raise to game.

West led the ten of hearts. East took this with the Ace and continued with the Ace-King of clubs. Declarer ruffed low and, without any discernible thought, cashed dummy’s Ace and King of trumps.

When East discarded a heart on the second round of trumps the contract was in trouble. Declarer continued with three rounds of diamonds (hoping West started with four cards in the suit). Alas, West ruffed the third round of diamonds for the third defensive trick and declarer still had two heart losers.

“That trump break was a bit unlucky,” whined South. “Not at all,” replied North. “In isolation, your play of the trump suit was normal – it allows you to pick up the suit without loss when East has four spades headed by the Jack.

“However, the bidding should have strongly warned you that East was possibly short in spades, so your thoughts should immediately have turned to coping with a 4=1 trump break with East holding the singleton.

“The play of the Ace-King is the standard play, but you have been warned that trumps may break badly as East has shown a heart-club hand – so cashing the Ace-King starts to cut you off from dummy.

“If, however, you play the trumps by cashing the Ace and Queen, you would be in control on this deal. If both opponents follow you simply draw the last trump and claim 11 tricks.

“If, however, West shows up with four trumps your next move would be to play on diamonds. West can do no better than ruff the third round of diamonds and play the Queen of clubs.

“You can ruff this and draw the last trump with dummy’s king. Then the two top diamonds left in dummy will give you the contract.”

Don’t you just dislike smart-a partners?

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

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, December 27

1. Gertrude Barker/Lynanne Bolton

2. Aida Bostelmann/Heather Woolf

3. Stephanie Kyme/Diana Diel

Monday, December 30

North/South

1. Stephanie Kyme/Charles Hall

2. Richard Gray/Wendy Gray

3. Geoff Bell/Kathleen Bell

East/West

1. Lorna Anderson/Heather Woolf

2. Elysa Burland/Molly Taussig

3. Elizabeth McKee/Sharon Shanahan

Wednesday, January 1

1. Betsy Baillie/Delton Outerbridge

2. Lynanne Bolton/Heather Woolf

3. Elysa Burland/Molly Taussig

Thursday, January 2

1. Charles Hall/Rachael Gosling

2. Erika Jones/Tim Mardon

3. Delton Outerbridge/Sancia Garrison