The Junior Open Teams Championship concluded with the second session last Tuesday and when the smoke had cleared the team of Samantha Pickering, Marion Silver, Jane Gregory and Nick Kempe are the winners of the Junior Teams title for 2019.

It was a close contest and in the end the winners were just four IMPs ahead of the student team of Shane Kruger, Brett Baumgartner, Gareth Cooper and Max Santiago, which represents an excellent performance as the winners were clearly strong favourites going into the event.

The runners-up steadily closed the gap in the second session but came up just short in the last round in their attempt to catch up and overtake the leaders. The winners won every single one of their eight matches and the second-placed team lost only to the winners — great stuff! In third place was the team made up of Joanne and Mike Dawson, Mark Stevens and Malcolm Moseley.

A total of ten teams took part over the two evenings, with a number of newer Bridge Club members having their first experience of teams and, interestingly, every team won at least two of their eight matches.

The good attendance and the competitiveness of the event bodes well for the future, as this is the group that one hopes will take the club forward. A big well done to Samantha, Jane, Marion and Nick — they clearly work at their game and were the team to beat going into the event and they endorsed that standing — it won’t be long before we see them in the results in the Intermediate and Open games.

This week’s hand features some great declarer play by South in the face of some superb double-dummy defending by East-West, and it was nip and tuck as to who would prevail.

The bidding was over quickly — South opened 2NT showing 20-22 high card points and North had an easy raise to 3NT — West led the Jack of Spades.

When dummy came down, declarer could count six top tricks. The obvious plan was to play on Clubs to develop the three extra tricks required. So, declarer took the opening lead with the Ace of Spades and ran the 10 of Clubs, which held the trick. Declarer continued with the Queen of Clubs, West discarding an encouraging Diamond, and East found the good defence of ducking a second time which causes some real entry problems for declarer.

After a short pause to assess the situation, declarer then led the 4 of Clubs to dummy’s Ace and played another Club, jettisoning the King of Spades from his hand. Now if the defence continued Spades declarer had his entry to dummy.

East won with his King of Clubs and, in response to West’s signal, shifted to the 9 of Diamonds. Declarer played low from hand and West won the trick with the Queen and exited with the 8 of Hearts. Declarer played low from dummy and won the trick with his King. He continued with a low Diamond towards dummy. West took this with the King of Diamonds and played his remaining Heart to the Jack, Queen and Ace. Declarer led the 6 of Diamonds to dummy’s Jack, which was now good. That was his seventh trick; the Queen of Spades and the 9 of Clubs were his eighth and ninth — contract made!

Wonderful bridge all round — great planning by declarer and the defence had to be card perfect to give him any problems. Bridge resultsMonday afternoon

North/South

1, Margaret Way/Molly Taussig

2, Diana Diel/Linda Pollett

3, Elysa Burland/Sancia Garrison

East/West

1, Charles Hall/William Pollett

2, Stephanie Kyme/Elizabeth McKee

3, Gertrude Barker/Julia Beach

Wednesday morning

North/South

1, Charles Hall/Judith Bussell

2, Diana Diel/Stephanie Kyme

3, Julia Beach/Patricia Siddle

East/West

1, Edward Betteto/Sancia Garrison

2, George Correia/Beverley Connell

3, Peter Donnellan/Lynanne Bolton

Thursday evening

North/South

1, Alan Douglas/Gertrude Barker

2, Peter Donnellan/Lynanne Bolton

3, Judith Bussell/Diana Diel

East/West

1, Margaret Way/Fabian Hupe

2, Elizabeth McKee/Linda Pollett

3, Edward Betteto/Stephan Juliusberger

Friday afternoon

North/South

1, Charles Hall/Linda Pollett

2, Tony Saunders/Margaret Way

3, Judith Bussell/Stephanie Kyme

East/West

1, William Pollett/Peter Donnellan

2, Edward Betteto/Molly Taussig

3, Patricia Siddle/Julia Beach