Bridge

The Scottish Bridge Union encourages inexperienced teams to enter its events by offering silver and bronze prizes. At the Edwin Berry Edinburgh teams did well in these categories: bronze winners were Mike Gallacher, Kirsty Goodman, Pat and Ian Cook, 15= with 85 VP; silver winners were Fiona Greenwood and Troy van-de-L’Isle, with Stewart Macdonald and Kevin Strathern from Glasgow.

This was a tricky 4S contract. In response to partner’s weak jump overcall South led a club. There are three obvious losers, but only nine likely winners. Declarer might consider a dummy reversal. Win the ace of clubs, ruff a club and lead a spade to dummy. If North ducks ruff another club, cross to the king of hearts and ruff dummy’s last club with the jack of spades. Now declarer must rely on the queen of diamonds as an entry to draw the last trump, so this line fails miserably if North has the king.

A better shot is to try for three tricks from diamonds, or for one opponent – here South in view of the bidding – to have four cards in both red suits. Ruff the club lead and play trump. If North ducks take the diamond finesse. Win the next club, discarding a heart, and play trump. If North wins and plays a third club discard another heart to tighten the position. Ruff the next club with the jack and draw the last trump. Then cash two diamonds. If South has kept her fourth diamond she has discarded two hearts and you have three heart winners.