David Ezekial

The Single session Novice Pairs Championship was held at the club last week and congratulations to Catherine Kennedy and Hugh Gillespie on their win with 22.5 match points.

Linda Manders and Wendell Emery were second on 19.5 and Patricia Rodgrigues and John Kessaram third on 18.5. This event is usually the first entry point into competitive bridge for these players and will hopefully spur them on to bigger and better things.

The other event that took place was the Bridge Club Christmas Party, which was by all accounts a resounding success. This event takes a ton of planning and work, so well done to all who played their part in getting it done. The annual Championship prizes were handed out at the event and I will bring you the full Player of the Year listings next week.

Next up at the club is the Ernie Owen Individual on Thursday — an event that commemorates one of the leading players on the island in the Seventies and Eighties. Ernie was my partner for a number of years and was not only a great player but loved bidding theory and we had a lot of great discussions on our system, which ended up being somewhat complex.

This week’s hand, once again, displays the value of experience in getting good results.

Dealer South E/W Vulnerable

? 872

??????????????????????????????? ? K72

•QJ10832

?8

? 109 ?J65

? J9843 ?105

• K95 •A764

? Q64 ?A1095

? AKQ73

? AQ6

• None

? KJ732

The Bidding with East West silent throughout:

South North

1????????1NT

3? 4?

????????????????????????????6?

Quite a few South players played in the spade slam which succeeded at every table — but one.

The lead was quite often the 10 of spades, which is a good start for the defence.

Declarer won this, crossed to a heart to play a club and East won the ace to play a second trump – this left declarer no choice but to ruff a club and hope for good things, and good things happened. With the queen of clubs coming down eventually, declarer made the slam.

So how did one declarer go down? Well, it needed an East player who had listened to the bidding and had been here before.

At that table, West also led a trump but when declarer crossed to dummy to play a club East played smoothly low-declarer, quite naturally, now played the jack of clubs, which lost to the queen and a second trump play actually had the contract defeated by two tricks.

East made a great play, knowing that declarer probably had five clubs East knew that with only two trumps left in dummy he was always going to get his club ace, so ducking the first club was never going to cost and gave declarer a chance to go wrong — which he did.

Nice play – take a good look at the hand and try and see how East came to his conclusion as this is a situation that occurs time and time again at the table.

Richard Bryne

Results for week of November 27

Monday afternoon

North/South

1. Molly Taussig/Diana Diel

2. Tony Saunders/Jean Johnson

3. Richard Gray/Wendy Gray

East/West

1. Julia Lunn/Heather Woolf

2. Magda Farag/Peter Donnellan

3. Aida Bostelmann/Elizabeth McKee

Monday evening

1. Alan Douglas/Jane Smith

2. Patricia Siddle/Diana Diel

3. Gertrude Barker/John Glynn

Tuesday evening

1. Betsy Baillie/Lisa Ferrari

2. Gina Graham/Felicity Lunn

3. Nikki Boyce/Carol Eastham

Wednesday morning

North/South

1. Louise Rodger/Molly Taussig

2. Heather Woolf/Greta Marshall

3. Margaret Way/Julia Lunn

East/West

1. Gertrude Barker/Jane Smith

2. Wendy Gray/Richard Gray

3. Patricia Siddle/Diana Diel

Thursday evening – Over 300

1. Charles Hall/John Rayner

2. John Glynn/Magda Farag

3. Edward Betteto/Elizabeth McKee

Thursday evening – Under 300

North/South

1.George Correia/Caroline Svensen

2. Scott Godet/Sally Godet

3. David Pickering/Linda Abend

East/West

1. Kathleen Keane/Mike Viotti

2. Richard Keane/Diana Downs

3. Martha Ferguson/Judy King

Friday afternoon

North/South

1. Louise Rodger/Patricia Siddle

2. Elysa Burland/Molly Taussig

3. Gertrude Barker/Marilynn Simmons

East/West

1. Edward Betteto/Margaret Way

2. Michael Bickley/Harry Kast

3. Magda Farag/Jane Smith