Very little is happening at the Bridge Club right now ahead of the Bermuda Sectional, which starts next Friday afternoon and finishes on the night of the June 16.

There will be single session events on the Friday and Monday afternoons and the two session championship events will be held on Saturday afternoon and evening, Sunday afternoon and evening and Friday/Monday evenings. Full results will be in this column.

Two separate local sessions of the Worldwide Bridge Contest will have been held last night and this afternoon, so results in next week’s column.

This week’s hand is a lesson in both declarer play and in facing the realities of a hand instead of making plays that are doomed to failure. Read on and you will see what I mean.

Dealer South. Both vulnerable

(Spades / Hearts / Diamonds / Clubs)

North: 876 / K974 / K53 / AJ5

East: 942 / 6 / QJ8 / Q98642

South: A/ AJ3 / A1097642 / K3

West: KQJ1053 / Q10852 / None / 107

The bidding:

SOUTH/ WEST / NORTH / EAST

1D/ 2D / DBL / 2S

3S / Pass / 5D / Pass

6D / Pass / Pass / Pass

The bidding was good — after a 1 Diamond opener by South West bid 2 Diamonds, a Michaels Cue Bid showing at least 5-5 in the majors. North doubled to show values, and after East bid 2 Spades to show preference, South had a tough bid. South chose to bid 3 Spades, which should show a good hand with a good Diamond suit and when partner bid 5 Diamonds he had an easy raise to the small slam.

West led the Spade King, East following with the two which showed an odd number, clearly three. Declarer won the Ace and it all looked quite easy until he played a Diamond to the King and West showed out — he now had to do some thinking.

With the certain trump loser, declarer needed either the Heart finesse to work (hardly likely with West having shown Hearts) or the Club Queen finesse to work — again unlikely given that East certainly had a bunch of Clubs as West was short. Having figured this out, declarer decided to face the reality of the distribution and devised a plan to make the hand if East was 3-1 in the majors, which he almost certainly was on the bidding and the play at trick one.

Declarer won the Diamond King and ruffed a Spade, crossed to the Heart King, ruffed the last Spade and cashed the Diamond Ace to come to this position:

(Spades / Hearts / Diamonds / Clubs)

North: - / 974 / 5 / AJ5

East: - / - / Q / Q98642

South: -/ AJ / 1097 / K3

West: QJ / Q108 / None / 107

He now made the key play of unblocking the King of Clubs and then cashed the Ace of Hearts. East was stuck. If he ruffed he would have to lead a Club into the AJ allowing declarer to throw his losing Heart, so he discarded a Club. That only put off the evil day as declarer now put him in with the Diamond for the same outcome.

Really great card reading by declarer and he deserved the complete top he received on the hand. It does show, however, that conventional overcalls that show distribution are a two-edged sword; as sometimes they set up a good contract or sacrifice, but if you end up defending you will have given declarer a lot of useful information, as on this hand, which declarer only made based on the bidding.