Version 1

Most hands of the day are selected to show a good play found or missed. Hand 11 on 2nd April is different.

After partner overcalled Souths 3D pre-empt with 3NT I struggled to vtsualise the other hands. If 3NT showed 15+ balanced then the oppos were being pretty frisky with a combined 5 count. I tried 6S and bought a dummy somewhat short of expectations. Suffice to say that we had had a misunderstanding but incredibly found an excellent contract. I won the diamond lead, drove out the SA, ruffed the diamond return and drew the remaining trumps. In doing so I discarded clubs. I kept just the CJ plus hearts which I expected to run  throwing clubs.That plan failed as I played the HK and found that hearts were 4-0. I should have kept CJT in dummy to enable two finesses in clubs. But I was lucky- when I cashed the last  trump North was squeezed in Clubs and hearts. He discarded a club so one finesse brought them all home and 6S made.

We had a serious misunderstanding and a dummy play error but still registered a top. Bridge is definitely a funny old game.

Version 2

Hands of the day are  often used  to show a good bid or  play found or missed, Hand 11 on 2nd April is different: this hand illustrates that bridge is a funny game where you dont always get whhat you deserve (fortunately).

I was West holding a very nice 20 count with 6 spades. When partner overcalled the 3D  pre-empt with 3NT I had  difficulty making sense of things. Supposing partner had a modest balanced 15 count that left opponents with 5 points to justify their leaping to the 5 level. If I trust partner then it makes sense  to make a grand slam try-but I did not see how to go about that so I settled for 6S. It would be fair to describe my reaction to dummy as surprised. Instead of a 15+ balanced hand I saw a very shapely 5 count. We had had a misunderstanding of major proportions.

Amazingly 6S was a great contract. After winning the D lead I drove out the SA, ruffed the next D and finished drawing trumps. All that remained was to cash hearts discarding clubs and claiming 6S made. Unfortunately the hearts broke 4-0 and did not run. Also unfortunately I had discardred all dut one of dummy's clubs which limited the tricks I could make via club finesses. But fortunately (at last) when I played off the remaining trumps North was squeezed having HJxx and CKxx. He had to keep the hearts so reduced his clubs to Kx, Now I could finesse the clubs and make the last 3 tricks in clubs, Q,A, and x.

Had partner not bid over 3D we would never have reached 6S. As I said it is a funny old game

I did not play this Tuesday and so am not able to guarantee the bidding  or play at the 8 tables. However board one told a familiar story. Every East opened 1NT and every East made 1NT,  sometimes +1, except when serial winners Sandy and John were N/S. At this table North (Sandy or John) did not give in to 1NT but bid 2S with Sxxxxx and 2 Aces. That was very difficult to beat and in any case would have been a good score at -50 for one off.

 Was that lucky? or inspired? No,and no-it was nearer routine for experienced pairs players. The fact that West passed 1NT meant that partner had to have values and suggested that the opponents were balanced, reducing the risk of bad breaks. It will not be right every time but will work more often than not which is the acid test. This time it scored 100%.  In fact the first 4 boards all scored 100% for John and Sandy. A more compassionate sport like boxing would have stopped the contest.

No matter for how long you play this game you are doomed to have periodic misunderstandings with partner. For me the latest example of this truth was board 25 on this Tuesday:

I opened 1S  rebid 2H and in response to partners bid of 3C (Sandy's overcalled suit) I showed my 5-5 shape by bidding 3H. Now partner had a problem; NTs were out of the question given John Rolph's double of 3C so Irene chose  4S which was likely to be a 5-2 fit but maybe 6-2. This was meant as a limited hand given that it was non forcing.  Alas I thought it showed a good hand given the 3C bid and in  an ill considered moment bid a hopeless 6S. John Rolph with his SQJTXX had been a bit surprised by 4S and now was very surprised by 6S. Not too surprised to double unfortunately.

My bid of 6S was a foolish move at pairs; if 12 tricks are available in spades then 4S+2 is prpbably good enough. It is a point I have often made-I must start taking my own advice.

After the event I see that 4H is much better than 4S-but I do not see how to play in hearts. What I do see is that I should bid 3D over 3C, not 3H. If partner has 3 hearts she can bid 3H now  to cater for a 5 card heart suit.

This instalment of the Scratch Cup was a close run thing for Irene and me, and for visiting pair Stan Zygadlo and Lloyd Eagling. Stan and Lloyd recenlly played with John Rolph and Sandy to comfortably win the Notts team of 4 championship. On this Tuesday they played on Real Bridge and overcame a moderate start to catch the Aulds on the finishing line and win by 1 imp. However roles were reversed  on Wednesday morning ; the merging of Real bridge and face to face results yielded a narrow win for us. What that proves is anyones guess.

Board 8 was straight out of a textbook on endplay tecnnique. Against Irenes 4H Lloyd led SK- ducked. She won the trump switch and played three rounds of  trumps before cashing spades and diamonds finishing in dummy. The scene was set for an endplay in clubs. Irene had CTXX and a trump in dummy, opposite CKQX and a trump in hand . She played a club to the K ,which Lloyd won. Now he was stuck, either losing a club to the 10 or conceding a ruff and discard.

There was an answer for the defence; duck the CK and wait for two club tricks.

And there was an answer to that defence. Draw just two rounds of trumps, enabling you to exit  in trumps at trick10 if Lloyd finds the duck wih CAJX.

The second hand of the day in 2024 features another small slam, bid by a minority and made with an overtrick. I had the enormous East hand and had to decide what to do over 3H from North. Realistically I was on my own; if I tried to involve partner eg by doubling then i would probably see her bidding large numbers of spades. Accordingly I chose the contract unilaterally and bid 6D. I dont consider that a punt. If partner has a few diamonds I expect to finesse the HK and ruff the third heart As it was partner had amazing diamonds and so gave serious thought to 7D. That would be my choice at teams or rubber bridge but  as  usual it is unnecessary at pairs. 6D scored 14/16  matchpoints.7D would be 16/16 but 7D-1 would be 0/16.

This hand of the day features the first board of the first session of the 2024  Hopkinson Cup. Winners by a comfortable margin were Desmond O' Sullivan and Steve Mulligan.

On board 1 Steve opened 1D  as North , got 2C  from Des but had a difficult choice when West produced  a 2H bid. There are at least 3 methods used by regular players, which amount to using double in different ways.That  is double 2H for penalties: double for takeout;  or double to show a strong NT with an imperfect heart holding. For what it is worth I favour the last option so would have doubled on this North hand. I suspect that Steve was unsure about this situation and made a tactical underbid of 3C to keep 3NT in the picture. It did not stay there long as Des bid an immediate 6C, making all the tricks. He was alone in abandoning 3N, the popular choice for other declarers. There was as usual no need to find 7C to get a top score. Just like 2023 really.

Congratulations to Sandy & John Rolph who came third out of 88 pairs who played in the EBUs Green Pointed Pairs event . They finished ahead of many top pairs including fourth placed Ian Pagan & Catherine Seale. The hand displayed is board 23 featuring those opponents: North's 2S was weak and John refused to pass that out instead giving his partner a reopening double to think about. Sandy played  for the magic 200 at pairs by passing. This looks ddangerous but is absolutely what you must do to contend in a big pairs event. 2S doubled goes a comfortable one off for 200 scoring 80% whereas 2S undoubled scored below average. (17 pairs defended 2S undoubled; 3 pairs doubled.)

To employ a current football  expression at pairs you have to press.

Board 5 was another example of the difficulty most of us have in bidding minor suit slams when 3NT is an alternative. Irene and I certainly did not demonstrate how to find 6D with this uninspired sequence:

1S (routine)-2D (routine)-

3D (underbid but want to keep 3NT as an option)-

3NT ( underbid but dont want to miss NTs at pairs)-

All pass.

The only pair in slam were Sandy & John ( who else?). They produced the sequence shown with Sandy solving the rebid problem with a forcing 2NT. John now made a clever bid of 3C giving Sandy room to make a jump bid of 4D. The only problem now was to avoid 7D. As it was 6D was cold.

That was an imaginative effort. For less inspired pairs I think that a simple bid of 4D over 2D would do the trick. True you bypass 3NT but you keep 4S in the picture and East's hand looks like a suit contract to me.

On board 24 Sandy and John bid a decent slam missed by most of the field. So far so normal but there was a departure from the script in the play when  East found the  diabolical lead of the D8. With an almost certain trump loser Sandy needed to find an extra trick in clubs or diamonds  to make his slam. Of course as it happens he could drop the singleton DK but that was askng a lot. Nonetheless because of the entry problems he was forced to choose between a diamond finesse and a singleton K at trick one. With what I imagine was a heavy heart Sandy played low. West  won and played a club. Now Sandy rejected the club finesse and naturally enough tried to negotiate discards on the KQ of spades- which unfortunately involved attempting to cross to dummy with a diamond.- duly ruffed. Sandys heart probably became even heavier as the defence now took their CK and a ruff. The upshot was just 8 tricks-4 less than Jenny Bywater took in 6H doubled (on a spade lead).

It can happen to anyone. John and Sandy  won the event, with Jennny Bywater and Hilary Leigh (who defended 6H)  in second place.

This hand , board 13 , bears an uncanny resemblance to the last hand of the day on 3rd October. Both feature yours trluly in a jump in clubs opposite a weak hand. The outcome, however, was different,

After doubling 1NT and the rescue bid of 2H I saw partner bid 3C. That showed nothing but what she was missing looked open to finesses through the 1NT opener (just as on 3rd October). A heart was cashed and a spade was won . Now all that was required was to tackle trumps before taking the marked diamond finesse. Alas partner played just one trump before popping back to hand via a small trump whereupon the C 10 interrupted said popping . It was one of those days.

Are online games prone to mishaps? I had a calamity earlier mistaking 1D for 1H and playing in a 3-3 fit at the 4 level. Maybe the undo rules could have helped me but they are starting to resemble the offside law in soccer.

Hand 11 on 3rd October was Lynda Starling's  choice as hand of the day (or week even). Lynda (South) heard me double 1NT on my powerful two suiter and instigated rescue manouvres with a redouble . John Haddon removed to 2C over which I bid 3C. This Lynda doubled and Irene bid 3D. That bid on D9xxx was crucial ; I looked at my hand in light of the opening bid of 1NT and Irenes offer of something, albeit not much, and asked myself how could the opponents make more than the DA assuming they had even that. Any finesses were surely right so I bid 6D, doubled by North and made with ease by a surprised Irene.

Why was almost everyone else in a partscore? I think that it is important to keep control of the auction when you are determined to bid game at least. Hence my 3C bid over 2C. If you try anything else partner may make a despairing pass- and could you blame her? Is the sequence forcing? Obviously not in Easts book.

Another lesson from long experience is that in defence the Aces wont cash. If a competent and reasonably sober opponent suddenly jumps to slam eschewing RKCB or similar  that means they have a void.

When I overbid to 4H on board 28 I expected to be alone- in fact everyone tried game. I certainly expected to be alone when I made ten tricks. Wrong again; 3 out of 4 declarers made it despite 4 fast losers.

Against me South cashed CA&K and then S9. I tried the SJ on Norths K which persuaded her not to play another spade, Luckily my spade losers vanished in due course, one on a club and one on DAce.

The winners on the njght with a handy 70% were Rob and John. They too let 4H make with an interesting defense; after KC lead [ K for count} John signalled his 3 card length with a small club. On the AC continuation John  played  a suit preference C8 to  help Rob find a spade switch. Unfortunately that was consistent with a club holding of Q83 orinally. The message did not get across and a third club let 4H through.

I think it is best to switch to spades as early as trick 2 regardless of the club situation, but it would be a lot easier on an Ace for attitude lead.

There is a saying in the Chess world, "if you find a good move look for a better one." Board 24 this Tuesday is an example of the same thing at Bridge.

I opened a weak NT and played in 3S after a typical competitive struggle. East ,whose 2H bid showed hearts and a minor, led the HAce before playing three rounds of clubs. Now I considered the 3 card club holding West  had shown. If he had Hearts and a minor suit {ie 4 cards +} that implied one spade {or none}.

After a bit of dithering I ran the S9 then small to the J and drew all the trumps without loss. Happily aglow with this  demonstration of counting up to 13 I turned my attention to Easts minor suit, diamonds.  Now came  an Awful Thought- could West have DQX? East had ditched red cards on spades-that was about all I noticed ,but I had a feeling that at least one diamond had gone. I guessed to finesse in Diamonds- cue recriminations.

Another Awful Thought  struck me; after 3 rounds of trumps I could have  played HJ to pick up Easts King and remove the need to find DQ. The truth is that I stopped thinking once I had got the trumps right.

Two days after my last Hand of the Day Steve and Sandy started board 15 1D-2C-3H showing heart shortage and a good raise in clubs, Just as I suggested although I am sure they dont need any advice from me. Sandy had a good hand with CAK particularly important so he cooperated with 3S. Now Steve improvised with 4H which proved an inspired choice. Expecting a void in hearts Sandy bid 6C, against which Roger Stock led a club. He too assumed hearts were taken care of; maybe Sandy was going to cross ruff. I think I would have led a heart but who knows? Sandy gratefully disposed of his heart loser on a spade and made 6C. As he has often said to me it is better to be lucky than good!

Board 20 presented a familiar problem; how to show a good raise in a minor suit without missing a better score in 3NT. Most Norths underbid with 3C when partner responded  2C to 1D, and most  Souths subsided in 3NT also an underbid. Just one pair [Dave Wightwick and Mike Vessey} bid 6C for a top, and one pair, who wish to remain anonymous, bid 5C for a below average score. Everyone else bid 3NT inluding winners on the night Janet Styles and Helen Jones.

The answer to this hand is for North to to bid three hearts over 2C. Since 2H would be forcing this unnecessary jump agrees clubs and shows a shortage. Yet another convention but a good one. 

Hand 12 was the most interesting and challenging this Thursday.

Firstly it is odd that almost all Wests started with1C rather than 1D (higher of touching 5 card suits}. The consequence was that they did not bid 6D, a reasonable slam. Partner and I managed the bidding but unfortunately not the play. On the spade lead your options are to find the DQ, which gives you about a 50% chance of making- after one fnesse you trump the C9 and that should do it. A bad tump break may still do for you so 50% is optimistic. At the time I thought that the best line was to cash top diamonds and leave the Q outstanding if it has not appeared. Now you can play clubs discarding hearts. That works if clubs behave.

In writing this I wonder if an immediate trump finesse, folowed by clubs discarding hearts if that loses is best. {I wont try your patience with further detail; I said it was challenging.}

Question: why did East bid 2C on his void on hand 3 this Tuesday? Answer: he failed to diistinguish between the black symbols on his computer screen.

I suppose I was lucky to finish in spades after that mishap, making 13 tricks by ruffing two  small hearts, but on the other hand I missed the chance to bid slam. That should be easy if you can agree spades quickly, If it starts 1D-1S you should bid 2S whenever you have a minimum distributional opnning bid with  3 or more spades. If you dont you risk never showing your fit. You are not good enough to keep bidding to show delayed support. After 1D- IS-2S I would not criticise a bid of 6S.

 If you want to use a flashy convention then bid 5C  over 2S, a jump to the 5 level called exclusion Blackwood. This asks partner to count key card outside clubs and make step responses, West would show tthe red Aces with 5S and East should reflect that parrtner has diamonds and spades and is surely short in hearts. There are gadgets which would identify third round control of hears but life is too short for that!   

It is a tough game when you do almost everything right only to score a bottom rather than the top you were expecting. That misfortune befell Roger Stock on board 26. Playing with Julia he was the only declarer in an excellent 6S. Winning the diamond lead on table he  had to manage trumps for one loser. Viewing the spades  in isolation the book solution is to take two finesses- a 75% percent chance in theory. This can be summarised as losing to SQ and SK only when South has neither- which is one case- rather than when South holds one or the other or both- which amount to three cases. { Please direct questions to  Nottingham University Maths department}.

Roger started on the standard line by finessing a spade to my singleton K. I exited with DJ and now Roger diverged; believing I could well false card with KQ doubleton he played SA and alas lost two trumps. That was bad luck but the theorists would say that after I had played SK at trick two the odds were that I did not have SQ. This is  known as" restrIcted choice".{ Any questions should still be directed elsewhere.]

Taking a practical approach, and with the benefit of hindsight it is unlikely that Irene has SKQX, given the bidding. A simple solution is to play SA and another. That loses only to KQX on the left { unavoidable } or KQX on the right  {unlikely to happen as discussed}.

Board 4 this Tuesday went some way to demonstrating why John Rolph and Sandy keep winning. It was not just that they were alone in bidding a good slam {which they were} but that they made 12 tricks while most declarers made 11. After CA and a heart switch West has to negotiate trumps. Does it matter? Yes if trumps are 4-0 you need to pick up J and Ten with two finesses. That is impossible if North has 4 spades but can be done if South has them all.  Players who made a reflex play of SA first took 11 tricks. Players like John who knew their safety plays started with small to the K made 12.

I recently confessed that it was not easy finding somethng original to say when selecting a hand of the day. Part  of the problem is that the same things keep happening. For example the top pair on the day find their way to a slam based on distributional values whilst everyone else struggles to bid game. This time it was Pete Sampson and Sandy on board 3.

Pete overcalled 2C and heard Sandy bid the openers suit ie 2H. That showed a good raise in clubs which improved Pete's hand enormously. Any time you get support for a long straggly suit like CJxxxxxx is good news. Now there followed two cue bids and slam was inevitable; if Pete had left it to partner, Sandy  would surely have bid 6C given his wonderful trumps.

Its Aces and long suits that count on distributional hands, as I may have said before.

We had plenty of bad results this Tuesday but board 24 was an interesting exception. Everywhere 3NT was bid and a club was led.After winning the CQ what should declarer do with the diamonds? The answer  is nothing for the moment; if you guess wrong in diamonds it will be very difficult to make 3NT. Better to find out what you can and tackle diamonds when you have gathered clues about the distribution. It is a general rule of dummy play to delay important decisions for as long as possible ( a modus operandi with which I am very familar).

Back to the hand- I left diamonds alone for the time being and played SQ at trick two. This was ducked so I continued with SJ, ducked again after a pause from South. I persisted wiith my information gathering by playing a third spade won by South who cashed a fourth spade on which North discarded her club. Now the defense played hearts to tthe Ace giving me two more to cash. South discarded on the third heart while her partner discarded on the CA. That enabled me to place South's original hand with 4 spades, 2 hearts, 6 clubs... and therefore a singleton diamond. Picking up DQXX was now a certainty, rather than a guess as it would have been at trick 2.

Note the the defence cant be blamed for revealing the distribution, and even if it did go wrong that is all part of the game. Give them every chance to go wrong!

Board 21 was a prime example of the difficulty in evaluating distributional hands using high card points. My apologies to anyone bored of hearng this message.

I sat East holding  a nice 6421 16 point hand. Opponents bid up to 4S as I overcalled 2D raised by partner. How much defense did I have? The hearts in dummys first bid suit might be handy as was the SK. Overall I felt uneasy about letting them play in spades but felt sure that 5D would not make given my lack of Aces. I bid 5D duly doubled by  North.I was right  about not defending 4S; we would make zero tricks. The grand slam in spades is lucky but 6S is a very good contract. No N/S pair played in spades which suggests thst they viewed their hands as a 13 point opener opposite a 6 point response. On these highly distributional  hands the important things are long suits and Aces. Norths hand was generally undervalued given the Aces and the void.

To add to North/ South's woes the defence slipped up after the singleton heart lead when they attempted to cash top clubs before taking spades. 5Dx was a surprise make.

Board 19 on this Thursday gave South a familiar problem of how  to manage a solid 8 card suit in a good hand. {Familiar that is if you play in Retfords Real Bridge events; board 10 on the same evening featured a nine card spade suit KQJTXXXXX plus an Ace}

The popular choice would probably be 4H trying to seize the contract before the opponents find a spade fit but Pete Samson chose 1H given his outside strength and a partner who was yet to bid. I am inclined to agree with that despite the fact that elsewhere 4H  was opened and won the contract. After 1H the opponents doubled and found the spade fit- where they can make 12 tricks. Pete now did what good players do in this situation; he made an advance sacrifice of 5H , doubled by West. Now came another crucial decision - what to lead. West chose SA fatally losing a spade trick and conceding 5HX. That lead looks wrong to me. Declarer has all the strength and dummy probably nothing. In that scenariio declarers losers are not going anywhere unless you help him, so you should look for the safest lead. With no trump to lead that looks like a club, which was Helen Jones choice. Of course it is not difficult to construct hands where a club is wrong; nothing is certain on this hand.

Hand 11 was the board which caused my ipad to implode and forced Irene and me to withdraw from this event. Apologies to everyone for the dIsruption. As it happens we were on our way to a good result; after I opened 1NT there was some spirited intervention with 2C from East showing both majors. This type of sequence where one player chooses a major opposite a Landy 2C is quite common, and often calls for a trump lead. Accordingly I led a small  heart. Where are declarers tricks if not by ruffing?  Declarer played a spade at trick 2 won by Irene ,who put me in with a diamond to lead another heart. The contract was heading for 2 off when my screen went black forever, so we cannot be sure. Without trump leads John Rolph and Gerry Franklin made 8 and 9 tricks respectively in hearts.

The moral of the hand, apart from leading trumps against Landy sequences as explained, is do not use an ipad for online bridge.

On this Monday Sandy won a third round Gold Cup match by 16 imps over 48 boards. He partnered Dave Robinson with  teammates Tony Sowter and Tony McNiff. That was obviously a very good team so victory might be expected; except that their opponents were  Simon Gillis's team ,the number 1 seed in a field containing all Great Britains top players and more from abroad.Gillis included former world champions, one of  them Zia Mahmood, the worlds most famous player. In fact victory was sensational.

The match was a battle from the off. Sandy offered me the displayed hand as evidence. Wests 2D was a weak 2 H or 2S so Dave Robinson at favourable vulnerability and facing a passed hand bid a skimpy 2S. {Fortunately West did not have spades - no doubt rescue manoevres were being prepared) .East with his huge hand made a 2N enquiry and  Sandy put the opponents on the spot by bidding 4S. It was hard for West to accept  a double of 4S on his defenseless 7-5-1, so he walked into 5H x-1. With 4H making  in the other room that was +13 imps to Sandy and team.

Many congrtulaions to Sandy, Dave, Tony and Tony. If you win that match you can win them all.

The key bid on board 10 was 4C by West showing  club shortage and values for 4H at least. That was Steve Mulligans choice and  with the expectation of no club  losers  Sandy  used RKCB to bid  the excellent grand slam. On a trump lead he had no trouble making 13 tricks and another good score on the way  to 70.42% on the night. Irene and I replicated the sequence and also made 7H, albeit on the way to 49.58%.

Elsewhere however every declarer was in 4H+2. That was partly due to a the lack of a 4C splinter bid, but any strength showing bid by West should lead to a slam-after all East has a lovely 4 loser hand.

In fact there is no need to bid 7H  - a small slam gets you 80% on the board. But there is still a  special pleasure in bidding a grand slam no matter how long you have been playing.

On this Tuesday Irene and I managed an increasingly rare win by making three slams worth 41 out of 42 matchpoints. Board 15 was ridiculously lucky but 8 and 10 seemed simple.

On board 10 we had the simplest of sequences as shown with Irene bidding slam at once after my raise of 1S to 4S. The reason she did so was because we have no convention to discover the heart position, and if we did discover a weakness in hearts what will the opponents lead? Left to their own devices they are guessing and you may well make even missing HAK. The other problem pairs had was in evaluating my hand. Not raising to 4S because you have only 6 points is misguided. Points are almost irrelevant on highly distributional hands with a ten card fit. If you want an evaluation system to support your judgement the Losing Trick Count is as good as any.

I have considered offering an occasional hand worthy of the description " too clever by half ". Board 1 on this Thursday illustrates what I mean.

I opened 1S and played 3N afterJanice Troughton overcalled 2H. On the heart lead found at other tables 3N drifts 2 off. Declarer has to lose the lead in diamonds and concedes 4 hearts and CA as wel as DK. However Janice tried a club lead which should have given me time to make 3N. I won the club in hand and led a diamond to the ten. Mary-Jo Mangion ducked smoothly, so now I was certain diamonds were running and thought about overtricks. With diamonds coming in {!} and 4 spades to cash it was a case of persuading the defence not to take top hearts and the CA. I plyed a cunning heart to the Q, which Janice won and played more hearts, Now I had the rest, I thought, so prepared to claim eleven tricks. I ran the JD and was less than happy to see the KD appear from Mary-Jo's hand. Partner was even less happy as we watched the defence cash out in clubs and hearts.

I understand that one should expect to have an 8 card suit every 213 deals. I had two in a single round of this thursdays drive, the most interesting of which was board 9.

I started with just 1C and finished up on lead against 4H. After cashing CA, DA and CK I exited with a diamond hoping that declarer would play spades before trumps. That did not happen but declarer had a lapse  by playing me for the SQ after drawing trumps. As he immediately saw I could hardly have any spades having already shown 8 clubs, 3 hearts and 2 diamonds. Fortunately noone mentioned my lapse in defence; after cashing CK I knew the partner had either no more clubs or the CQ singleton. I should  continue with the C10 (or similar ) hoping for partner to ruff and return a spade for a ruff and one off. A nice play and not difficult.  

On board 11 this Tuesday just two pairs played in 4S : John Clarke and Richard Buckle who gained a top ; and Irene and I who managed a zero in 4S doubled. All the other pairs played in hearts making ten tricks.

John C got a heart lead to the Ace and a club back to the J and Ace. That looked normal enough and John took 8 tricks {- 100). When I was declarer I also had a heart lead but significantly Sandy led the King and having held the lead switched to trumps {something his partner could not have done from SKX]. This led to four off [-800}. Bidding 4S was wholly wrong for many reasons. It will play badly if as here dummy has only 3 spades and the expected singleton in hearts. If partner has 4 trumps she can bid 4S herself. The hand still suffers from a lack of Aces so overall passing is indicated.

Despite this setback we finished 2nd. Winners predictably were Sandy and John Rolph.

So far 2023 has delivered at least two very unusual hands. Last Thursday (12th Jan} board 23 saw East pick up nine hearts- AT9876532- a pretty unusual thing in itself but much stranger when South opened 1H. East found himself tabling an unbid 9 card suit as partner went for a large number in 4S doubled.

Whether that was more or less bizarre than this Thursdays board 18 is hard to say. West {Gerry Franklin }  decided to open his balanced 19 count with 1D planning to bid 3N asap. That was the plan with 1D maybe deflecting a lead in his weakist 4 card suit. As North I had also been wondering how to manouevre myself into 3N. I was naturally taken aback by a bid in my lovely long suit and had to pass. I dd not suspect a psyche; Gerry is known as a solid citizen. Even on a bad day I could make 7 tricks so Gerry's cunning plan turned out to be one of Baldricks.

Who knows what the rest of 2023 holds.

Having scored 28/30 in the final round  last week John Rolph and Rob continued in the same vein this evening ,scoring all the matchpoints in round 2. Board 4 was an excellent 6C ( they were the only pair in clubs }, and on board 5 they repeated the trick making 6D. Elsewhere minor suit aversion gripped the field,

 After 1S-2H-2S a number of pairs made a lunge for 4S or 3NT, while some took a more considered  approach with 3D.The next bid was critical;  those who bid 4D fixed partner into 5D-or possibly 4S. By contrast John Rolph bid his hand jumping to 5D over 3D and left partner to bid slam with his extra strength.

A nicely judged and entirely natural auction .

This was the final drive of the 2022 Scratch Cup with Sandy and John Rolph  leading ahead of the Aulds. Our target to take the lead was 66% on the night.

On board 10 Irene helped the cause seeing a possibility that few other players would consider. Winning the diamond lead in 3N she saw that  the contract needed 4 club tricks to succeed and no other possibility it  seemed . She immediately led a heart and put West under pressure. He erred by playing low hoping for declarer to play the 10. But Irene made a great play of the HQ. There was no point in losing a trick to East. A diamond would come back and the clubs would still have to come in. As it went she could now missguess clubs and still make 9 tricks. But of course she got the clubs right and a top score resulted.

After 8 rounds we had  exceeded our 66% target but had to play John Rolph and Rob Atkinson in the final boards. It did not go well. On 25 I overbid to 4S, meanly doubled by Rob ; on 26 we had a misunderstanding ( AKA made a mistake }; and on 27 Rob was the only player to take a save in 5C-1 against 4H making. 2 matchpoints out  of 24 did not trouble the Scratch Cup leaders .

Cogratulations to John and Sandy.

I have to admit that pair 6 had some luck with the slams in this drive.

On board 4 I opened 1H and rebid 2NT (forcing) over 2C. Now partner showed heart support and after some cue bids and flirting with clubs we bid 6H.  Now came the big decision: should East double with  his two certain heart tricks? This position is much discussed in bridge literature with warnings about  opponents running to alternative contracts. Roger Stock doubled and I ran to 6NT. 6H was bid at just one other table where Sandy also doubled ( passed out). The decision at pairs is simply how often will double work and how much does  it stands  to gain. At teams the calculation is completely different namely will doubling lead to -1440 instead of +100? Those odds are unattractive.

Roger led a club and I  ducked a heart before cashing the top hearts, 5 clubs and 2 diamonds ,extracting several discards to finish with SAx H9 opposite SKJx in dummy. West had to discard from SQXX and DQ. Fearing  she was being squeezed she discarded a spade. Unlucky- I think that discarding on a long suiit is the hardest thing in the game.

One hand proves nothing but defending 6H is much easier!  

This Tuesdays drive was part of the admirable ecats charity. Nearly 1200 pairs around the country and beyond participated, with donations to Children in Need. Eighteen pairs played at Retford Bridge Club, including John Rolph and Sandy Fulton who scored 70% and finihed third overall.

Hand number 7 was interesting as an example of how players determindly avoid minor suit slams at pairs: playing normal methods West will open and jump rebid in clubs. Her next bid  will surely be 3NT, having heard partner bid the majors, and at this point East must decide whether to make a move towards slam or to rest in the comfort zone of 3NT at pairs. Alas many hundreds chose the later course whiike just eight pairs went on on to 6C - a good contract easily made.

There are two points wotrth considering on this hand: one is that where you might have a slam, but cant be sure it is not necessary to make a guess one way or the other - consult partner. Who knows, they may be helpful! And secondly if you  dont like missing NTs remember that partner should be allowed to bid 4NT to play. 

The most exciting and interesting hand in this weeks Hopkinsons Cup was board 15. Liz Rothwell had the familiar choice of opening at the one level with her powerful distribution, or starting  with 2C. She felt that a one level bid was not enough and could be passed out, so chose 2C. The inevitable happened: Irene preempted with 3D and Bernard doubled with his strong diamonds. Unfortunately that was never going to be passed out. Liz bid 3S, and 4S when Bernard tried 4H. She did well to make 9 tricks. Their best fit (clubs) was never mentioned.

Some Souhs opened 1S but when West  contributed 3D North was in difficulties. Whether he passed or bid 3H the next bid of 4C left him struggling. Who can blame him for passing?

I think the answer is to open 1C  { as often happens with the black suits}. At your next turn you can bid spades, and then more spades until partner gets the idea and you reach 5C. Also worth noting is that 1C is less likely to be passed out than 1S.

Of course anything could be work so I could be wrong {ask partner.}

I  choose board 20 as the hand of this Tuesday but do so with a heavy heart.

With two huge double fits - in this case majors for N/S v minors for E/W - the general approach is to try to play the contract at a high level. At teams, bidding forever more or less describes it, as there is much more to gain by declaring rather than defending. Playing pairs bidding high is still indicated but more nuanced-you have to judge  when both sides are overboard. And in the competitive auction all kinds of tactics like preemptive jumps or deliberate underbidding come into play. At our table opponents ventured 6H by West over our 6C and we decided to defend. (Note that 7C makes without a heart lead ). Partner led a diamond to my Ace and I noted with pleasure the singleton club in dummy. "I'll just take a club to be getting on with" I thought. As declarer ruffed the club the heavy heart developed; I had committed the  cardinal sin of not thinking about the whole hand at trick one. If I had it would have registered that on the bidding declarer had 5 spades almost certainly and partner could ruff a spade, if I led one. That was -1430 and no matchpoints.

Thank goodness it was not teams.

I have to choose hand 19 as Hand of the day given that it features an opening bid unseen by me in 60 years, and it emulates John Roffe and Rob Atkinson in bidding a makeable slam with just two bids, ( see  23 June hand ).

The crux of the deal is Wests opening  bid; partner likes to strike the first blow on distributional hands rather than opening 2C and letting opponents  bid to the 4 level before you get started.Bidding 1S seems a big risk and 4S is ridiculously unenterprising. I think it has to be 2C ( if the EBU permits that on a mere 14 points). Having spades make a big difference; if they wade in you can outbid them.  However partner came up with another solution new to me namely 5S! My raise to 6S seemed the least I could do and the slam  duly rolled home.

STOP PRESS. The EBU has changed  the rules regarding criteria for opening a strong 2C on low point count hands as from 1/9/2022. Now you need 16+ points or 13+ if there are two suits with 10+ containing those points so on this deal 2C is now legal. I am not making this up.

Board 12 was played everywhere in 4 of a major;  either 4S after a normal 1S opening, or in the more robust 4H when West ignored the feeble spade suit.

It was all about playing the spades for one loser-a very difficult task in 4S ( it can be done but dont write in). Fortunately for the Wests they were helped by North who played a high spade when declarer led low to the Ace. The only declarer who made game without a defensive error was Lynda Starling. Playing 4H on the auction shown she saw the opponents cash diamonds and exit in clubs. Now she drew trumps and ruffed her remaining club. No doubt guided by the bidding she played North for a strong spade holding and hoped that South might hold the Ten. She led the SJ, covered by the SQ and SA, and exited with a spade. The defence was powerless; if the ten won the trick they had to concede a ruff and discard; if the SK overtook the Ten all the spades would be good. Well played Lynda.

Board 16 in this drive illustrated the tendency of most players to underbid hands with a big minor suit fit. Six of the seven E/W pairs either bid game  or invited game but came nowhere near the club slam.The exception was John Rolph and Rob Atkinson, who won the event with 70%.

Their sequence was 1C-3S ( shortage in spades)-6C. Three bids did the trick. It should be noted that in an earlier hand of the day Rob and John took 2 bids to find a cold 6D so clearly they have decided on a more scientific approach.

Every pair played 3N on board 23, all but one as South after a simple 1N-3N sequence. All the Souths got a diamond lead typically the ten. How does South make eleven tricks as suggested by the realbridge analysis?

It is not obvious. Playing on hearts brings the total to  nine, after which another trick may be available in spades which makes ten. The problem of the eleventh trick  was solved at the table by some sparkling play from Roger  Stock.

He won the diamond lead in hand and drove out the HA. East took the second heart and played back a third round. Now Roger cashed the  DK and CK beore ducking a club to Wests Jack. West was confronted with the choice of a diamond into dummy's Q8 followed by a club finesse; or opening the spade suit as happened in practise for elevan tricks. Well played Roger.

There are few ways to a good score more reliable than bidding a making grand slam. Most of a typical pairs field avoid grand slams even if fairly straightforward. Board 18 is a good example; East opens his nice hand ( 1D in this example ) and hears partner rebid hearts. All that remains is to use RKCB to locate HAK. If you are the last pair still to adopt RKCB then presumably 5NT would be the grand slam force and you still reach the excellent 7H. A similar sequence ensues if you open 2C and proceed with 2H-3D-3H.

Just two pairs bid 7H and the play was identical: North led a spade and both declarers decided to ruff a club for the thirteenth trick. That involved cashing the CA and getting back to hand via a spade ruff. Declarer needed to keep the high trumps given the impending club ruff and  return to hand so tried playing the second top spade and ruffing a spade low at trick 4. North overruffed and the blue skies were replaced with an East  West depression at both tables.  That was unlucky but not that unlucky. Declarer should have drawn trumps and established diamonds. Even if they are 4-1 you can play AK and ruff then CA and ruff a diamond and still have a spade entry for two good diamonds. It is a play that both declarers would normally make in their sleep but something about the grand slam affected their vision.

It is never easy biddng a game or slam when the opponents open the bidding. Board 10 was a  prime example; over 1S west had a familiar problem. Doubling with a singleton heart was dangerous, bidding 2C might be passed ( and was ) and 1NT or pass were perverse. It looks like double is least bad. I  thought that Irene did well to steer us into 5D which scored above average- I did not expect 6D to be bid.

But Rob Atkinson and John Rolph bid the slam and very quickly: East opened 2D , West bid 6D! So much easier than struggling with overcalls. This is another example of ultra aggresion collecting all the matchpoints. Back in the day there was some "rule" of 500 designed to limit the extent of risk in preempts. That is clearly old hat. This vulnerable 2D conforms to a rule of about 1400- but it works. 

Board 24 saw a real life example of a triple squeeze - a play more often seen in bridge books. Sandy executed the squeeze, which needed some misguided defense to get going.  I provided the misguided defense.

After opening 1NT Sandy showed 4 spades and finished in 3NT. I led a diamond, partner discarded a club and Sandy took stock. I imagine his thoughts were "I have 7 top tricks and if I am lucky a spade trick. There seems nowhere to go for any more. I really must stop opening these 11 point No Trumps." Undaunted he led a spade from hand which I won and tried Jack and another club, Sandy winning the second round and returning to hand in diamonds to lead another spade which I won. I now made a world class error by leading the Jack of hearts. I had the idea of playing hearts without creating a finesse position against my Jack but in truth I should not touch hearts at all; if I thought about the whole hand  I would have realised that the last thing partner wanted was another suit to guard. Sandy won in hand and played diamonds. On the final diamond Irene had the choice of throwing a club to make the ten a winner, or a heart to unguard the Queen, or a spade. She chose a spade so Sandy cashed  Queen and another spade to give her another unedifying choice. This time Irene unguarded the hearts  to let Sandy cash Ace and Ten for an overtrick.

Steve Mulligan and Sandy duly won the event. Well played.

John Rolph and Sandy won this Tuesday event- not for the first time. Board 14 demonstrated why as they outbid the field by some distance.  John as South opened 1H and rebid 2NT (forcing) after Sandy's 2C. From this frequent start every other North South subsided in 3N They were worried that once past 3N they were doomed to a minor suit score at pairs. By contrast after Sandy's 3D John bid 4C . He knew that partner would have a strong hand and/or lots of distribution to explore in a minor suit. After two cue bids and a jump to 6C he could be sure that Sandy had a singleton in a major suit and all the key cards required. With any balanced or semi balanced hand NTs would have been suggested at some stage. Accordingly John rather gilded the lily by bidding the excellent grand slam. 6C would have been a top but bidding 7C must have been gratifying.

As for missing NTs if slam were not on you need an agreement that 4NT can be passed rather than always being. RKCB. Regrettably this does need some discussion.

Realbridge delivered another monster on board 4. When partner opens 1NT all you need is the CA for thirteen tricks. Liz Rothwell and Bernard Plumb achieved this via a routine Roman Key Card Blackwood sequence. Surprisingly they were the only pair to bid the grand. It would have been harder if West had only one Ace - would it be the priceless CA or the useless DA?

If you can manage one more convention the answer is Exclusion Blackwood. This means that a jump to the 5 level asks for key cards excluding the bid suit . On this hand after transferring to spades East would bid 5D and West makes RKCB responses ignoring the  Ace of diamonds: so 5H is 0 or 3 ; 5S is 1 or 4; 5N is 2 etc. On this hand Liz would respond 5S having one Keycard outside diamonds - obviously the Ace of clubs.. It is infrequent but useful.

Getting the right lead is a huge consideration in any form of bridge and particularly so at pairs. On board 10 every East knew to open 1D on minimum values with such lovely diamonds but strangely almost noone followed the same logic as South with SAKQX. The exception was Gerry Franklin who ventured 1S and ruined Sandy and Martin's chances of bidding a making 3N. In practise neither could tell that they were losing just four spade tricks. Elsewhere South passed 1D , EW bid 3N and North usually chose a heart lead which helped declarer on his or her way. Obviously bidding 1S may incite patner to bid too much but it will gain more often than it will lose which is the only criterion at pairs.

Frank Ball and Graham Lee, both top county players were lured into the realbridge world this Thursday. Retford bridge is suddenly a click away for them rather than a thirty mile drive.

On board 21 Frank demonstrated the right approach in a high level auction when outgunned by opponents. After I openned 1S  (not a popular choice but one  I stand by ). Graham bid 2S (Michaels showing 5 hearts and 5 of a minor). My partner bid 3D and after some thought Frank surprised the table by jumping to 5H. His reasoning was that NS were on their way to 4S and he would have to bid 5H non vulnerable as a save or maybe a make. Rather than give them room to agree spades he bid to the limit at once. Baffled by this devepment we let Frank  play undoubled and missed our making 5S. In fact 6S is a lucky make.

Playing standard Acol with 4 card majors and 12-14 NT it looks difficult to agree spades. The practical approach without lots of system is to raise spades on 3 cards and trust partner to bid 3N with 4 spades and a balanced 15+.

Board 5 featured a ten card fit and eleven tricks in clubs for North South. Only Vivienne French and Alan Jillot mnaged to  bid the club game. 

I missed an opportunity in our auction. After partners 2C response (with which I strongly concur)  West  bid 2S, subsequently 3S and inevitably was raised to 4S by East. I sshould have bid 4C over 3S which enables partner to plow on to 5C over 4S.As it went we could only defend 4S doubled. It pays to involve partner in competitive decisions.

However West  should surely bid an immediate 4S. Nobody did, but a bit of diamond help is all it needs and North South cannot find 5C.

Choosing the hand of this day was not difficult. Norths holding on board 15  was the strongest I can remember, with a distribution you could expect every 10000 deals or so. I was therefore one of those  who drove to 6H over the opening 4S bid. True you have "only" eleven sure tricks but there are lots of possible extras, and in any case most opponents dont like discarding on nine rounds of trumps. Thirteen tricks were easy with the natural singleton spade lead; after picking up one spade honour you subsequently cross to the Club Ace to pick up the other.

Surprisingly some North Souths chose to double 5S for an inadequate penalty, which meant that those who defended the slam registered a poor matchpont score. However there was an opportunity. If East appreciates that declarer has a huge hand and dummy has nothing (and no entries) then perhaps the priority is to avoid helping him with the lead.  He/she is ready for  a spade obviously so maybe an alternative is indicated. What if declarer has KX of spades enabling a ruff foryou? In that case the hand will be somethig like SKX- HAKQXXXXXX-DAK-CA. Declarer may be unable to reach dummy to lead a spade, and is one off even without the singleton lead.

Whether I would follow that logic at the table is another matter, but Martin Button did and led CK to save a few matchpoints. Well done! 

Sandy and John Rolph normally grace Hallcroft with their presence on Tuesdays but this time they ventured into cyberspace  and so called Real bridge. They led from the start and won comfortably. John showed how on board 2. Almost every South had the same decision after 1NT (12-14) and two passes. It is a fair guess that everyone-except John- passed without much thought. Why bid vulnerable with 6 points? Answer because that is how you win at match pointed pairs. 2C was Landy for majors so Sandy-who had passed his poor 15 count -gave partner  plenty of leeway with a 3S invitation, declined of course. Sandy made ten tricks for a top.

Reopening on the South hand is not as dangerous as it looks. Sandy was marked with values and quite possibly  a 4 card major. If there were no fit you may be in trouble, but as often as not the opponents compete and at least you defend a higher contract.

And if you lose 800? It happens!

Roger found an inspired false card to restrict me to 10 tricks on this hand and gain himself a top. A routine Stayman sequence took us to the spade game. It was all about overtricks. Julia led a trump, won in dummy and I played a heart to the Jack and Julia's Ace. She switched to the club J and after a bit of thought I decided to play low in dummy and win in hand. Without pause for thought, Roger dropped the Q!! 

Now I had the chance of 12 tricks so I cashed my red suits winners crossruffing as I went along and finally drew the last trump. Hearts were 4-4, spades 3-2 and it looked like Julia started with J10xx of clubs. With two cards remaining I played a club to the 9 expecting to emerge with 12 tricks and a top but ended up with only 10 and a bottom! Well defended! Roger followed a good defensive principle in that you play the card you are known to hold, here the Queen. I will watch him more carefully next time.

An exciting hand from yesterday. Jane Stock correctly opened 1S even though only 10 HCP.

 Qualifies under rule of 20 law. HCP 10, + length of two longest suits 5+5, making 20, so ok  to-open. Remember high fives, so always open higher of two 

five card suits. John’s 2NT was for minors as was my 4NT and 6NT. I wasn’t able to resist a third non natural NT bid. It would have been a good save against 6H, -1400 rather than 1430, but full marks to Roger for bidding 7H for a complete top. Jane’s 4H bid was excellent in spite of only 10 HCP. Five card support and a source of tricks in the spade suit. Our only consolation was we would have only scored 2MP’s more for 7Dx. Good bridge all round.

Defence is the hardest part of the game so it is important to try and guide one another. Especially important is telling partner what suit to return when you give them a ruff. Today’s hand is a typical example from last Thursday. East realises the diamond is a singleton. So when they give partner a ruff they can signal which suit they have a quick entry to. East plays back the diamond 9 to suggest the higher ranking suit, excluding the trump suit, is the suit with the entry. So West now returns a heart, gets another ruff and tries a club. South now plays low hoping to escape for one off if West has the king but East has the king and gives partner another ruff for 3 off!

Last week’s Wednesday afternoon hands certainly were interesting. Out of 12 hands two slams were bid and made. Well done to those that bid them; it’s always good to make a slam. However the objective of yours truly with these hands is to get players who are a bit below club level to bid and make reasonable game hands.

Board 6 is an obvious EW game hand. E opens 1H with a semi-balanced 16 points and partner has a balanced 11. W should bid their terrible 4 card spade suit but whether they do or choose to bid 2C instead, they are ok. With a combined 27 count it is no surprise that 4Hs and 3NTs both make 10 tricks.

Hand 3 is worth some thought. South, the opening bidder has a balanced 15 points and opens 1S. Partner with 10 points and 5 Hearts bids 2H and opener re-bids 2NTs. They have 25 points between them and both 3NTs and 4H make 10 tricks.

Ironically an experienced S might down-grade their hand because the honour cards are not working together and most of the non-honour cards are very low. So they would open 1NT and partner will know that the combined point count is less than 25 and game will not be bid.

The deciding hand from the teams of four final, board 20. John passed as West, as did North and I opened a weak NT as East. South bid 5♣ and John came in with 5♥ , North bid 6♣ and I reflected on the bidding so far. It looked like West has a big major two suiter as he didn’t open a weak two or preempt with 3♥ so I took the push to 6♥ as my hand couldn’t be better for partner. You have to feel for North’s double when dummy tables K,9,8 of ♥ . There was no problem in the play when John played a ♥ to the 8. +1660 to the good guys. We were 22 imps down at the time so had the match been closer I don’t know whether I would have bid it. 

At the other table I think the bidding was similar but a level lower. Irene bid 4♣ , West 4♥ , North 5♣ , East now doubled which Irene had no problems making for another +750 to the good guys, 2410 or 20 imps. We were up 8 imps with 8 to play and tight defence in the last set saw us win by 15 imps.

It just goes to show that aggressive bidding is a winning tactic! Don’t be frightened of bidding with long suits!

After a couple of lean months your correspondent is in full flow today. This was the second hand that caught my eye. We are encouraged to get into the bidding if at all possible and that is what Roger did as North board 11. It is generally good tactics to get involved, particularly at love all. The downside is as today’s hand demonstrates in that it gives a blueprint of the hand. I ruffed the third round of spades, cashed the ♣ A, finessed the Jack with the help of Roger’s double which suggests clubs are 3-1 and cashed the ♣ K. If Roger started with 4-4 in the red suits he is now squeezed. Whichever red card he discards I can ruff out the suit to establish the long card without having to resort to a red suit finesse. 

The par result was found at only one table today. Both pairs scored exactly 50%. The bidding was short and to the point. Nick bid a direct 7♥ after Irene’s 4♠ bid. There is a lot for bidding what you think you can make (or what partner can make!). He only needs partner to have the ♥ K for the contract to be cold. And even if partner doesn’t have the ♥ K, the contract makes if the trumps divide 1-1. John Auld judged well to take the sacrifice in 7♠ . 

Imagine my surprise and delight when a few hands later I picked up another monster and hear partner show a powerful hand with his 2♥ reverse. 3♦ was 4th suit forcing and 4 ♣ set the trump suit. A couple of cue bids followed then Roman Keycard Blackwood. 5♠ showed 2 and the trump Q. Now 5NT was asking for specific/exclusive K’s. John’s 6♥ showed the ♥ king or the other 2. With none he signs off in the trump suit. As in the last hand I can almost place all his high cards so bid the grand slam in ♣ ‘s. Not quite 70% which is the percentage needed to bid a grand but better than most of my efforts.

The theme running through both hands is that if you bid freely over 3NT into your known minor suit, especially after 4th suit forcing then this shows a powerful hand inviting cue bids with hope of bidding a slam. It is important that you and your partner have the confidence to do it and not fearful  that you will be passed out in 4 of a minor. Apologies to both E/W’s who were on the receiving end!

After a long absence a couple of slam hands from last night. First off, note that I responded 1♥ only to partner’s opening bid. When he rebid 3♦ I was thinking grand slam. First of all I set the suit with 4♦ . This must be forcing inviting a cue bid. John did well to show the ♠ control rather than the ♥ one. Roman Keycard came next and I was surprised that John had only 1 keycard. From that I could pencil in all his hand after his jump rebid. I can count 6  or 7 ♦ ‘s, 1 ♠ , 3 ♥ ‘s and 2 ♣ ‘s. So 6NT it was. No problem in the play.

Lots of points of interest here. East bids 4♠ with only 3 points! However there are lots of trumps and a singleton! Priceless! Don’t worry about points when supporting partner. I always say as long as you put down 4 trumps I don’t care how many points you have. The fifth trump is a bonus!

What about South? I think he should bid 5♥ . Again the ♠ singleton is huge. If South take the push to 5♥ , what should East lead? The spade king is the correct card. If you lead 4th highest West now is endplayed. You will only have the lead once, so best to retain lead, await dummy then decide on a switch. Partner can play the ♠ Q, a suit preference signal for ♦ ‘s the higher ranking suit on dummy. Now you can take your 3 tricks.

Don’t ask about my 6NT - 5 on board 10!

Roger scored a deserved top for his fine play on this hand. John had a difficult choice of opening lead. It is a bit of a toss up between the ♦ K and the 4th highest. Unfortunately for us he chose the latter. Now Roger has 8 tricks if the clubs play for 4 tricks. If he can sneak a heart past us he has a ♥ trick in the bag to give him his contract. So a low ♥ towards dummy’s queen held and so he then turned to clubs, cashing then from the top. He now had 2 ♠ ‘s, 1 ♥ , 2 ♦ ‘s and 4 ♣ ‘s for his contract which turned into 11 when the ♠ Q dropped. If John decides to rise with the ♥ ace, he now has 2 ♠ ‘s, 3 ♥ ‘s, 2 ♦ ‘s and 2 ♣ ‘s for 9 tricks! If the ♥ Q loses the ace he can now rely on the ♣ finesse. Nicely played.

I was East and started with ♥ king. We play count so Chris will play the 2 to show an odd number. However in this situation, because there is a singleton heart in dummy, count is irrelevant. Instead West can send a message to East to choose which suit to switch to. Here, West should throw the ♥  Jack to suggest a high card in the higher ranking suit, in this case ♠ ‘s. I would than cash the ♠ Ace and another to the King for one off.

Although I didn’t get the signal for a ♠ switch I should have cashed it anyway. If Chris has the ♣ King the contract is going off anyway. If declarer has the ♣ King he has 6 ♦ ‘s, a ♥ ruff and 4 ♣ ‘s by setting them up after drawing trumps. Apologies to partner, again!

A dual theme on this hand. The first problem is East’s rebid after North’s overcall. Without the overcall you would rebid 1 NT. Now you have no good bid. This is where ourflexible friend comes in. You double which as opener suggests a good hand with no good bid. Perfect! Chris bid 2♦ and that is where we played. However South should certainly compete to 3♣ and I would almost certainly bid 3♦ . 

We discussed defence on the previous hand and this one demonstrates the principle of PASSIVE defence. South should start leading North’s suit. If dummy plays low, North should insert the 10. East draws trumps and exits with a ♣ . North wins and sees that West has weak ♥ ‘s, so plays the 10 of ♥ , top of a doubleton. East will win and exit a ♥  which South wins and cashes ♥ s. East ruffs the 4th round and eventually has to play a ♠ . Now N/S must make 3 ♠ tricks. If N/S Open the ♠ suit then E/W will make a ♠ trick. This ♠ layout is called a frozen suit. So named because whoever plays the suit first loses a trick in the suit. The clue to look for is Hxx opposite Hxx.

A short auction and to the point on our last hand of the evening. As East I led the ♣ 2 which John won with the Ace. Defence is the toughest part of the game and a good declarer will loose the lead early when you are unsure of where the high cards are situated. John advanced the ♠ 9 at trick 2. Now Chris did very well as West here as she let it win and she did it in tempo with no pause for thought. John now played a heart to the 10 and Chris won with the King. With no ♣ to return she led the ♦ 9, letting me know she had no high card there. That ran round to the Q on dummy and John ducked a ♣ to me. I now have a blueprint of the hand. He has the AK of ♣ and the K of ♦ . The ♠ play looks like he has the Q, so I played A and J of ♦ . Then I won the ♥ A, cashed the ♠ K and played a ♠ to Chris who won the rest of the tricks. 800 and a satisfactory end to the evening.

One of the key questions to ask yourself is: what is going on? Work that out and doing some mental arithmetic should allow you to reach the correct answer.

If North applies those principles then he should find the winning solution on today’s hand. South led the ♣ Q: declarer cashed both top ♣ ‘s, throwing the ♦ K and a small spade. North was in at the next trick with the ♥ A. What is going on? Why hasn’t partner led my suit? Answer: he hasn’t got one! Let us count East’s hand. East has only got one minor suit card. If partner has no ♠ ‘s then East has five and seven ♥ ‘s. It all fits!! Having worked that out North should lead the ♠ 10 which South ruffs and exits with a ♥ . In the fullness of time North will make two more tricks to defeat the game. 

How do you bid the difficult 4441 hands? They can be tough but this was the bidding at our table with Mary as East and Sue as West. It all looks fairly straightforward with Sue closing shop with her 3NT bid. She might have tried 2♠ , fourth suit forcing then Mary would bid 2NT as she has the ♠ ‘s stopped.

Sue took the obvious nine tricks and imagine my surprise when they were the only pair in 3NT! So, we bid these hands by opening the suit below the Singleton with a red Singleton : if we have a black Singleton we bid the middle of the other three. Another way of looking at it is checking you have a rebid when partner responds in your Singleton. One other pair bid 3NT later in the evening so it was only a second bottom!

A tricky hand to bid today. I was North, John and I bid as described. We play 4th suit forcing for one round only. So when I bid 3♦ this is now game forcing. John bid 3NT admitting to his ♦ stop and I bid a quantitative 4NT. No suit had been agreed so it was not Blackwood. John did well to accept and so I finished matters by bidding the NT slam. 6♦ is probably the best place to be, but even that it is not cold. 

It is important with powerful two suited hands like mine and no fit to take things slowly. Try to decide how forcing bidding the fourth suit is. It is always forcing to game at the three level. I could have finished matters by bidding 3NT at my second or third turn but I wanted to garner as much information as possible before making a final decision. I also didn’t want a ♣ lead through John’ second suit. My 3♦ goes by the name of fifth suit forcing! After John’s 3NT I could maybe try 6♦ which is probably the best spot.

A bidding system improvement and a missed opportunity are today’s themes. John’s 2NT rebid is 15-19 in the modern style and game forcing. This allows room to investigate slam below 3NT. Gerry then bid a quantitative 4NT and John optimistically accepted. He has seen my defence before!

Chris led a club and John cashed his black suit winners. He threw a heart and three ♦ ‘s from dummy, I shed two ♦ ‘s and Chris A ♣ . When John cashed the ♥ A I rather woodenly followed with the 3, then the nine under the K. Now he can only keep his fingers crossed and hope the ♥ ‘s are 3-3.

However, look what happens if I follow with the ♥ 9 and Jack. Now he has an option to play the ♥ ‘s as 4-2 and end play Chris with her bare ♦  Ace. It depends whether he believes my carding!

There is a saying that says that the 5 level belongs to the opponents. East/West were doomed to a bad board on today’s hand. Once I bid 5♥ as North East should probably pass. Although there are 6 good spades, it is a semi balanced hand, it is equal vulnerability, the 5 level belongs to the opponents and partner’s bold barrage bid of 4♠ has done its job. John did very well as South to bid the ♥ slam with his Singleton trump ace, but even if he doubles that will net us 800.

In East’s defence all these 5 level decisions are very difficult. However as long as you apply the above criteria you will come to the right decision most of the time. Whether John would bid 6♥ without the 5♠ bid is a moot point!

John and I bid the ♣ slam as above. However I had the mechanism to bid the grand confidently but was rather lazy in the bidding. Rather than just bidding 6♣ after John’s heart cue bid I should have gone through Blackwood. I was listening to Bob Hamman’s advice, if you think that partner has the exact cards then he almost certainly hasn’t. I was bidding the slam anyway so it doesn’t cost to go through 4NT. He would show 2 keycards and then I could bid 5NT. When he bids 6♥ promising either the ♥ K or the other two (his 3♦ promises the ♦ K) I can confidently count 13 tricks and bid 7NT.

The important point of the hand is my initial 3♣ bid. After a 1NT opener, 3 of any suit promises a good 6 card suit and slam interest. John has a superb hand for me, a maximum with good clubs and good controls in the other suits. If he had a minimum with no good fit then  he would sign off in 3NT. We were rather lucky to score a joint top as only Gerry and Sue bid the club slam.

It is said that experts like to avoid finesses if at all possible. Ten tricks are guaranteed on today’s hand if declarer can engineer E/W to open the club suit. East starts with top diamonds. Declarer ruffs the second round, draws trumps and tries a ♠ to the Q and K. West returns a ♠  which North wins. Now North plays a ♥ to the 9 and ruffs the last ♦ . Finally North exits with the last ♠ leaving E/W to open up the ♣ suit or give a ruff and discard.

Game made without a club guess.

Why does 3NT go one off and 6NT make played by the same hand? Quite a conundrum but today’s hand shows how! John made a slam try with 3♣ and then passed my sign off in 3NT. Irene led the ♥ 5 and they quickly cashed 5 tricks! So how does 6NT make? East suggested he would try a quantitative 4NT with North’s hand which I would have accepted and bid 6NT. Now would West lead the small ♥ . We will never know, but any other suit lead leads to 13 tricks. Interestingly North played the hand most of the time so several Souths must have opened 1♦ or East opened a weak2♠ . Just goes to show how tricky the game can be.

Monster hands like North’s can be notoriously difficult to bid. A suggested sequence is illustrated above. North’s 4♣ bid shows an extremely powerful hand with excellent clubs and is game forcing. Even had South initially bid 2♦  it would still be forcing. Now South can cue bid her ♥ control, agreeing clubs as holding the Q will solidify the clubs. Now North can bid the grand slam in NT with reasonable confidence. South has shown a balanced hand with about 8 to 10 points and has only shown five so far. Either red Q makes the grand solid and there are lots of squeeze possibilities too. 

Saving space by South relaying with 2♦ makes it harder to bid the grand with the same degree of confidence. We bid 2♣ -2♦ -3♣ -3♦ -3♥ -4♥ -6♣ . The main thing to remember is to take hands like North slowly. Have confidence that partner will not pass below game.

We look at a rare trump reduction play this week. A model sequence is demonstrated above. South’s 4♥ should be a cue-bid agreeing ♠ ‘s and N/S should  subside in 5♠ . We got a bit too high and bid the precarious slam. East led a ♦ to the Ace and it was returned. North cashed a top ♠ then went to dummy with a ♥ and finessed the J. When West followed with low ♠ ‘s the Q,10 sunk the contract. However if West covers the ♠ 9 with the 10 and North finesses then North is sitting with K,6 sitting over the Q,4.

Now North has to reduce his trumps to the same length as West and be in dummy at trick 12 to lead a plain card through West. Best to cash K and A of ♣ , ruff a ♦ then back to dummy with a ♥ and cash Q of ♣ . If West throws a ♥ YOU MUST RUFF your winner then play your last ♥ to dummy and play any card at trick 12 to scoop up West’s ♠ holding. 

Well done to John Auld and Frank Norton who were the only declarers to make 12 tricks.

David Dobbie did very well to pass David Garside’s limit raise. He scored a joint top for just making his part score in spite of his 15 HCP. There is a lot of controversy about whether 3NT or 4 of a major is the best game on 4-4 or 5-3 fits. The modern expert trend is to go for the 9 trick game. This is especially so if one hand is 4333, even more so if both have the dreaded 4333 shape.

So to hit the bullseye David D should bid 3NT. David G has no hesitation in passing this with his sterile distribution. Tricky to make but almost any line will result in 9 tricks. Sadly not a single E/W pair tried the 9 trick game.

Good defence needs partnership cooperation. West had a tough problem after East led the ♦ Q. This was covered by the K and won with the Ace. Who has the ♦ singleton? West needs to know whether the AK of ♠ will stand up. So at trick 2, West cashes the ♠ K. King for Kount! East follows with the 2, promising an odd number. Even if North falsecards with the ♠ Q, West can now cash the A as East has 3 or 5. Only then does West play a second ♦ for a ruff if East has the singleton. I encourage everyone to learn the balanced hand distributions off by heart: 5332,4333,4432. It makes solving this type of problem much easier.

By applying the Ace for Attitude and K for Kount you can solve a lot of defensive problems. This applies throughout the defence and not just on the opening bid. You only have to add up to 13!

This looks a fairly routine bidding sequence to what I would call the normal contract. Keith's 1NT, dustbin response to Frank's ♥ opener was spot on as was Frank's raise to 2NT and Keith's pass. I made the normal 4th highest ♠ lead and Keith played it well to emerge with 10 tricks. I thought we would get average minus but imagine my chagrin when I discovered that every other East was playing in 1 or 2♥ ! What was worse was that even had we held it to 8 tricks it would still have been a bottom!

Why were all the Easts in 2♥ ? I can only assume that South overcalled 2♦ and then East bid 2♥ . Having spent a fair amount of column time espousing the use of double, it is a little disappointing that all the East's have decided to repeat their ♥ 's rather than the more flexible double. West can now convert that double into a penalty by passing the double which would net them 300 or 100.

Should John overcall 2♦ ? Expert wisdom likes to have a 6 card suit. However Andrew Robson is more flexible and suggests a hand like South's with three honours is worthy of an overcall at the 2 level. You add your honours to the suit length: here 3 honours and a 5 card suit. This makes 8 allowing you to contract for 8 tricks. Very useful rule to decide whether to venture in at the 2 level. A close decision though either way.

The beauty of the game is it's never ending supply of problems that occur which you can generally get right if you think along the correct lines. Today's hand is a case in point. Bob took the push to 4♥  and got a well deserved top by end playing West.

My bid of 2♠ was rather an overbid and I probably should have doubled the final contract. In these situations when you have a strong holding in declarer' second suit it is generally a good idea to lead a trump. So I fished out the ♥ Q. John won the Ace and returned one which Bob won. He played a ♦ to the king and John's ace. It looks natural to now lead the ♠ K which is what John did. Two tricks later he found himself endplayed to lead into the ♦ Q,10 or setting up dummy's ♠ J. As I must have four ♠ 's for my 2♠  bid he knows declarer has only one so can afford to play a small one. Now he can safely exit with a top ♠ when in with the ♣ J and declarer is a trick short.

I could have prevented this debacle by leading a ♠ at trick 1. Also if John ducks my initial ♥ lead then declarer cannot get home. Anyway, bravely bid and well played by Bob.

Bernard Moore has never been a politically correct sort of person. He is the same at the bridge table as today's imaginative effort shows. His 1♦ overcall is not a bid of beauty and will not be found in the teaching manuals. Only a 4 card suit, doesn't eat up any bidding space but what a great result. I showed my ♠ suit and John Haddon made an excellent pre-emptive effort of 3♦ . This gave John Rolph something of a headache as he has no good bid. He would like to bid 3NT but only has 15 HCP,  only 3 card ♠ support so out came the takeout double. Now I developed a headache: I eventually opted for the ♣ game as I felt I was too good for only 4♣ . Now the wheels really came off as John thought this could be exclusion Blackwood (don't ask) and we eventually landed in the ♠ slam which is even worse than our usual efforts. Bernard kindly didn't double but it was still no match points for us.

Anyway, well done Bernard. The egg on our faces was worth it for the grin on yours!

It is unusual to find oneself endplayrd on the opening lead. This fate befell Mike Crook on Tuesday's duplicate. He led the ♥ Q which I ducked! The double suggested he had the majority of the points and Phil had the ♥ A.

Once he remains on lead Phil cannot get the lead to send a ♣ through. Mike switched to the ♣ K but to no avail. Game made. The good news for Mike was that the double cost no matchpoints.

In the bidding note Chris's 3♠ , an excellent bid and although I normally advise that when you open a weak 2 you keep quiet for the rest of the auction my hand has excellent shape (6421) and could easily open at the 1 level, hence why I bid on to 4♠.

Chris tells me that players tend to freeze a bit when playing me and today's hand is a case in point. I have a rather minimum overcall on the North cards. The only thing going for it is the good suit. What should East do? Bid straight to 4♠! You have 8 points, you can add 1 shortage point for the doubleton ♦ and 3 for the singleton ♣ , making 12 high card point equivalents. If partner has only a minimum he will have 5 or more ♠ 's, if he has only 4 then he will have a strong no trump hand. The ♣ singleton is also likely to be pulling full weight as North has bid the suit.

So the message is when you have good trump support make sure you bid up and don't forget to add your shortage points as above. As I say to Chris many times: as long as you table 4 trumps then I don't care how many high card points you have, I will be a happy bunny.

Two good lessons on today's hand. I was East and poked in a minimum overcall. At the 1 level I consider this a minimum and would never dream of overcalling at the 2 level. The distribution is good (5431) and the suit qualifies Andrew Robson's suit quality test. A five card suit and add  the two honours equals seven so it is ok to overcall contracting for seven tricks. The main reason for this type of weak overcall is to get the defence off to the right lead as we will see later. After Keith's 1NT, Chris correctly competed to 2♠ . Again she is minimum but she knows of the eight card fit so supports my suit to take away the bidding space. Alan doubled to show his extra values and they alighted in the good game contract.

That is the bidding lesson and now comes the defence lesson. Chris led the ♠ 2, low from three to an honour. I won the ace and returned my original fourth highest. Keith perforce won the king and Chris paused for thought. She knew I had five ♠ 's, hence declarer only two so she brightly ditched her Q under the K! Now when she got the lead with the ♦ Q, she was able lead her small ♠ to my three winners. 

With Sandy's absence we have not had a 'Hand of the day' for some time so I offer this exhibit from last Thursday. Hand 25 did little to help our cause as we scored a meagre 14% on the board. However, being generous in nature, I have decided to credit Bernard with a rare example of a 'Stripe-tailed ape' double. This is where the double of a game contract is meant to deter the opposition from bidding a makeable slam. (5H doubled +1 scores 1050 against 6H which scores 1430).

The double is so named because the doubler, if the contract is redoubled, is recommended to run like a 'striped-tailed ape' to a sacrificial contract. In this case it would be 5S doubled which would lose 800. Unfortunately the rest of the field played in game or worse, and it was only John & Irene, who bid the excellent slam, that saved us from a complete bottom..

In practice, I don't think either Bernard or I would have bid over a redouble, and if declarer takes the Heart finesse and sets up Clubs, they make all 13 tricks for a score of 2000!