Congratulations to defending champions Caitlin Conyers and Erika Jones, who held on to a good lead from the first session to retain their Junior Pairs title at Bermuda Bridge Club.

Runners-up were Josh Hussey and Julia Tadman, fractionally ahead (by just 0.17 matchpoints) of Amanda Ingham and Heidi Dyson in third place.

The event had a good field of ten pairs and after the first session Caitlin and Erika laid down a marker with an excellent 68.63 per cent game which gave them a healthy, but not unassailable, lead from Julia and Josh who also exceeded 60 per cent with a 60.63 per cent game.

Lying third were Amanda-Heidi on 58.75 per cent and still in the mix were Ross Cooper-Keri McKittrick on 55 per cent.

There was no drama, however, in the second session with Caitlin-Erika finishing with 92.5 match points ahead of Julia-Joshimar on 82.5, a hair's breadth ahead of Amanda-Heidi on 82.33 with Ross-Keri on 80.

Many congratulations to Caitlin and Erika — they say “uneasy is the head that wears the crown” and it is always difficult to defend a title with the added pressure.

Well done to all these pairs and we hope to see them keep up the good work and make progress into the senior ranks.

I’m presenting this week’s hand as a double-dummy problem – it is a tough one and stumped me for the longest time as a single-dummy problem – I finally came up with the answer but in a tournament I would have been long disqualified for exceeding any reasonable time limit! See the hand in Figure 1 and the bidding in Figure 2.

East made a weak jump overcall of the two of hearts at his first turn to bid. South promised at least five spades with the two of spades and, when that was raised to three, he aggressively drove to the slam in spades via a check first on keycards and second on whether North held the Queen of spades, with his five-heart bid. Six of diamonds by North promised the trump Queen and also showed the King of diamonds.

West led the three of hearts, an obvious singleton.

In the Open Room, declarer was also in six spades and noted that if the Jack of clubs fell in three rounds he would make all 13 tricks. So he put all his eggs in one basket – he won the first heart, played three rounds of spades, barely noticing the implications of East having four trumps, came to hand with a diamond and drew the last trump.

Now he cashed the clubs but when the Jack did not come down, the contract failed by one trick — unlucky, but the play was a bit simplistic.

In the Closed Room, declarer won the heart lead in hand with the Ace and cashed dummy’s three trump winners, noting that West threw a club on the second round, which made him stop and think.

As East was now marked with ten cards in the majors, declarer deemed it was very likely that the clubs were 4-1 or worse. Declarer saw a way to overcome West having four clubs headed by the Jack.

Declarer returned to hand with a club to his Ace and drew East’s remaining trump with the King, throwing a heart from dummy. When declarer continued with the King and Queen of clubs, East discarded on the second round.

This was now the position (see Figure 3).

Declarer realised he needed two entries to dummy: one to set up the clubs and another to reach the established winner there. So he led his five of diamonds to dummy’s King – he now played the ten of clubs from dummy while discarding the Ace of diamonds from hand!

After winning the trick with the Jack of clubs, West had only diamonds remaining, and had to concede the trick to dummy’s King of diamonds.

Declarer could now discard his two heart losers, one on the King of diamonds and another on the long club, making the slam in just brilliant fashion!

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

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS March 14-20

Friday March 14

1 John Rayner/Heather Woolf

2 Elysa Burland/Magda Farag

3 John F W Glynn/Molly Taussig

Monday, March 17

North/South

1 Gertrude Barker/Jane Smith

2 Betsy Baillie/Joyce Pearson

3 Peter Donnellan/Lynanne Bolton

East/West

1 Aida Bostelmann/Elysa Burland

2 Lorna Anderson/Heather Woolf

3 Margaret Way/Rachael Gosling

Tuesday, March 18

Junior Club Championship

1 Caitlin Conyers/Erika Jones

2 Joshimar Hussey/Julia Tadman

. Amanda Ingham/Heidi Dyson

Wednesday, March 19

1 Louise Rodger/Margaret Way

2 Peter Donnellan/Judith Bussell

3= Elizabeth McKee/Rachael Gosling

3= Tracy Nash/Desmond Nash

Thursday, March 20

1 Judith Bussell/Gertrude Barker

2 John F W Glynn/Rachael Gosling

3 Peter Donnellan/Lynanne Bolton