A bit of a lull now on the tournament scene but Friday November 6 sees the next staging of the Ernie Owen Individual, an event that evokes difficult memories for me.

Ernie was my partner for many years until his untimely death in a road accident after a bridge night many years ago and we had a ton of fun and success together, both here and at the many World Championships we played in.

He loved the game, especially bidding theory, and we spent hours discussing and practising our bidding … our system was so complex that it took 30 pages of those large computer printouts we used to have!

As to whether the system was worth the trouble is open to debate, but we loved the bidding journey as much as we loved the final contract so it really worked for us. And it would put our opponents to sleep or frustrate them with an “alert” after every bid and a long explanation. Ernie, above all, was a great friend and is sorely missed. Ernie also loved declarer play — I rarely bring you complex play hands in this column but with some interesting, hopefully inquisitive, new young players on the scene I will put some hands in that show them just where this beautiful game can go, both in the bidding and the play.

Today’s hand is a Declarer Play gem !

The Open World Championships in China were not a great success for Norway, but on this board from the World Open Pairs final, Espen Lindqvist performed with elegance and brilliance and his play was voted “Declarer Play of the Year” by my colleagues in the International Bridge Press Association.

North

SJ6

H106

DQ974

CA6543

WEST

SQ1095

HKJ874

D2

CJ108

EAST

SK87

H32

DJ63

CKQ972

SOUTH

SA432

HAQ95

DAK1083

CNone

The bidding was over fairly quickly:

South

1D

WEST

1H

North

2D

East

dbl

South

4C

West

Pass

North

5D

West led the ten of spades, ducked all around. Lindqvist won the spade continuation with his ace, ruffed a spade, discarded a heart on the ace of clubs and ruffed a club with the ten of diamonds. When Lindqvist played his last spade and West followed, Lindqvist ruffed it with the queen of diamonds, then ran the nine of diamonds successfully! He ruffed another club, removing West’s last exit card. and played his last two trumps to reach this position:

North

S

H106

D

C6

WEST

S

HKJ8

D

C

EAST

S

H32

D

CK

SOUTH

S

HAQ9

D

C

He now capped off his brilliant play by leading the heart queen and when West won the king he played the heart 10 from dummy! West’s enforced heart lead now gave him the last two tricks and an amazing plus 600 !

Yes, he played it as if he could see all 4 hands, but that is what successful declarer play is about – visualise the layout depending on the bidding, decide on where you need certain cards to be …… and then execute! Easy really — Okay, not quite!