The two championship events to be held this month are the Individual on Friday 14 October and the Teams on 24 and 31 October.
Jenny Smith and Pat Kelly, winners of last Monday’s game did well on Board 16 (above). All North/South pairs played in spades but only Jenny and Pat bid and made 4S. Pat (declarer) received the lead of the four of hearts, which was won in dummy. Declarer’s best line of play is to continue with a small spade from dummy, intending to play the 10 if East played low. When East correctly played a spade honour it was beaten by the Ace. The key to success is now to cross to the King of spades and leave East with a winning spade. The Queen of diamonds is continued from dummy and is allowed to run to West’s King. There is no return that West can make that will worry declarer. Let’s assume that a heart is led. It is trumped in dummy and declarer plays three diamond winners. On the fourth diamond, declarer discards the four of clubs (a potential loser) from dummy. East now trumps this card, leaving declarer with two trumps in both hand and dummy. Declarer can cash two top clubs and cross-ruff the remaining clubs and hearts without losing any more tricks. This gave Pat eleven tricks for plus 450 and an absolute top on this board.
Results: Friday, 30/09/22 (4 & ½-table Howell): J. Mobbs T. Hinde (64.8) 1; N. Bonnell B. Bonnell (59.3) 2; H. Price R Hart (57.8) 3; Jenny Smith P. Kelly (56.9) 4. Monday, 03/10/22 (4 & ½-table Howell): Jenny Smith P. Kelly (63.2) 1; R. Hart H. Price (62.5) 2; T. Hinde P. Campbell (55.6) 3; N. Collins D. Moran (52.1) 4.
