Good news this week as the Bridge Club takes another step towards normality with the announcement of the dates for the Spring Club Championships – fingers crossed that the pandemic continues to ease and that the club will see a good turnout for all four events.

Here are the dates:

Novice Pairs – Tuesday evening, March 29

Open Pairs – Thursday evenings, March 31 and April 7

Non Life Masters Pairs – Saturday, April 23

Men's and Ladies' Pairs – Saturday, May 21

Before I get to the column another reminder to encourage your friends who want to learn bridge to sign up at bill@pollett.com at which point Bill will provide all the details contained in last week’s column.

The lessons start on Tuesday, April 5, between 7pm and 9pm and will continue for a total of eight sessions.

Today’s hand is, again, about planning at trick one which is essential to successful declarer play. I can guarantee that the first card out of an inexperienced declarer’s hand after they have gained the lead in a suit contract will be a trump, and some believe that the play of the hand can’t really continue until the defenders trumps are drawn! See Figure 1.

South usually opened 2NT showing 20-22 balanced, North bid 3 clubs (Stayman) and when South bid 3 spades, North happily raised to the spade game.

At every table West led the standout King of diamonds. The hand looked as if it has three inescapable red suit losers, so declarer had to avoid a club loser which meant that East had to hold the King.

Most declarers won the Ace and played Ace, King of trumps, noting the 4-1 break. Now declarer usually continued drawing trump ending in dummy and ran the club 10, which held. Now another club to the Jack also held but when West showed out declarer had to concede a club and went down to a one-trick defeat.

Our successful declarer saw immediately that the club finesse had to work for the contract to succeed. So after winning the diamond Ace at trick one, she played the 5 of clubs and inserted the jack which held. Only now did declarer move on to drawing trumps in four rounds ending in dummy.

Now the 10 of clubs was played and declarer ran this successfully – this left the lead in dummy to take yet another club finesse and declarer got home with eight black suit winners and the two red Aces – success!

The difference between the successful and unsuccessful declarers here is subtle, but as you can see it was all about taking time to think right at the start of the hand and then executing – a simple but really well played hand.

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, March 4

1. Wendy Gray – Richard Gray

2. Joe Wakefield – John Rayner

3. Gertie Barker – Martha Ferguson

Monday, March 7

North/South

1. Jack Rhind – Joe Wakefield

2. Linda Abend – Kathleen Bell

3. Marge Way – Molly Taussig

East/West

1. Gertie Barker – Jane Smith

2. Tracy Nash – Des Nash

3. Diana Diel – Dorry Lusher

Tuesday, March 8

1. Sarah Bowers – Stuart Clare

2. Janice Bucci – Angela McKittrick

3. Marion Silver – Duncan Silver

Wednesday, March 9

1. Linda Pollett – Bill Pollett

2. Gertie Barker – Jane Smith

3. Molly Taussig – Tony Saunders

Thursday, March 10

1. Elizabeth McKee – Linda Pollett

2. Rachael Gosling – John Glynn

3. Gertie Barker – Peter Donnellan

Non-Bridge Club Online Results for Bridge Club Members

March 11: Diana Diel and Stephanie Kyme – 10th out of 330 Pairs