As I mentioned in last week’s column, the 2024 Bermuda Regional is back and will take place at the Hamilton Princess between January 27 and February 2, 2024. Many thanks to Tim Morrison and his team at the Princess for working with us on this.

And also huge thanks to the team at the Bermuda Tourism Authority, who took the time to understand the value of this event to the island and provided the essential support to let it happen.

A big shout to Rachael Gosling who did most of the heavy lifting on this, aided by a small group of Bridge Club members who will form the committee that takes it forward. We relied heavily on all the work put in by Bill Pollett on the last, cancelled, Regional and his assistance was invaluable.

Details are being worked on right now in consultation with the ACBL and the main travel groups that come down here, in an effort to provide a tournament that meets the needs of the visitors and locals alike.

The first ads should hopefully go into the ACBL Bulletin in July and flyers will be prepared to publicise the event. The committee is looking at the timing of sessions and the chances are that the morning and afternoon sessions will become the standard, with evening sessions also being available for those who enjoy playing at that time. Much more on all of this later, but for the moment put it in your diaries!

One essential technique in declarer play is knowing how to play the hand and keep the “danger hand” off lead to stop that player from inflicting damage – today’s declarer did that well. See Figure 1.

The bidding was over quickly – North opened one club, South bid one spade and when North rebid 1NT South jumped to four spades.

West led the Jack of diamonds, on which East played the Queen. Declarer took this with the Ace as he did not want a club shift at trick two. Next he led the ten of hearts to dummy’s Ace and called for dummy’s Queen of hearts, with the intention of running it should East play low. However, East covered the Queen with the King of hearts. Declarer was still concerned about a club shift, so he ruffed the King of hearts with the Queen of trumps.

After drawing the defenders’ trumps with dummy’s Ace and King, declarer led dummy’s nine of hearts – again with the intention of running it should East play low. However, East covered the nine of hearts with his Jack, and declarer ruffed again.

Declarer now continued with a low trump to dummy's nine and threw his losing diamond on the established eight of hearts. Finally, he led a club from dummy to his King and West's Ace, thereby confirming the value of playing on hearts to establish a winner. The defenders took three club tricks but that was all, so declarer made his contract of four spades.

You should note that if West had the King and Jack of hearts as well as the Ace of clubs then declarer would still make ten tricks. South would pitch a diamond on the heart Queen, and on making the King of hearts West could not attack clubs without conceding a trick to declarer's king. His best shot would be to exit with a diamond.

Declarer would ruff the diamond, draw trumps with dummy's Ace and King, then lead dummy's nine of hearts to throw a low club from hand. No matter whether West then exited with a club or a diamond, declarer's tenth trick would either be his king of clubs or dummy's eight of hearts.

Really well handled – note that declarer did not rush to draw trumps but used his trumps sensibly as entries to make the heart plays and eventually have access to the winning heart.

• The Bermuda team of Bill Pollett, Charles Hall, Misha Novakovic, Marge Way and Rachael Gosling have been competing in the Open Teams and Mixed Teams in the CACBF Championships being held in Panama. I will report on the results in next week’s column.

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

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, May 19

1. Tony Saunders-Patricia Siddle

2. Geoff Bell-Kathleen Bell

3. Elysa Burland-Magda Farag

Monday, May 22

North/South

1. Gertrude Barker-Jane Smith

2. Richard Gray-Wendy Gray

3. Judy Kitson-Gill Butterfield

East/West

1. Judith Bussell-Diana Diel

2. Maureen Fahey-Stan Williams

3. Diana Downs-Gloria Rego

Tuesday, May 23

North/South

1. Rosemary Smith-Felicity Lunn

2. Duncan Silver-Marion Silver

East/West

1. Malcolm Moseley-Mark Stevens

2. Nikki Boyce-Carol Eastham

Wednesday, May 24

1. Joseph Wakefield-Molly Taussig

2. Linda Pollett-Sharon Shanahan

3. Greta Marshall-Lynanne Bolton

Thursday, May 25

No game