One might expect summer to be a quiet time for a largely indoor pursuit such as bridge, but it’s obvious that the Stamford Bridge Club purpose-built and air-conditioned clubhouse continues to hold an attraction, even when the sun is shining outside, writes club member Trevor Thrower.
We have been enjoying serious and fun competitions and these have been very well supported by our loyal membership. Stephen Gates won our annual individual competition in a field of 62 players of wide-ranging ability.
We enjoyed an Italian themed supper after play, courtesy of our social committee. On the more serious side, the two-session President’s Trophy concluded on August 5, with county pair Mark Hodgson and Rob Miller proving too strong for the opposition. Jane Reeve and Paul Collins finished in second place.
Hand of the Week
This week's hand is a declarer play problem. West is playing in 4S after South has bid hearts during the auction. North leads the HQ, the defence takes three heart tricks and then South plays C2. Playing in a suit contract it is best for declarer to look at his losers in the long trump hand taking into account covering cards in dummy. Here declarer has already lost three heart tricks and also has two losing clubs, one of which can be discarded on a diamond winner but how do we eliminate the other club loser? If we draw trumps we would have to rely on a 3-3 diamond split which is against the odds, roughly a one-in-three chance. If the diamonds are breaking 4-2 the only other chance is to set up the fifth diamond for a second club discard. The only entry to dummy is a trump therefore we would need a 3-2 trump break which will occur about two-thirds of the time.
After winning CA we will play a small spade to the S10 and a small spade to the SJ. If the spades have broken 4-1 we will have to draw the remaining trumps and hope the diamonds are 3-3. On the actual hand the trumps do break 3-2 we can now play a diamond to the DA, cash another top diamond followed by a small diamond and ruff with SQ. The diamonds will then be set up for two tricks, we can play our carefully preserved small spade to dummy's King to cash the two diamond tricks discarding our two losing clubs.
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