Bridge

THE Arthur Trophy, the SBU Grandmasters Pairs was moved to June because of pressure in the calendar, but the new date has not proved popular: there were only ten pairs this year. Winners were Mike Ash and Roy Bennett, from Derek Diamond and Derek Sanders.

There were a number of challenging defensive problems, but the winners made short work of this part score. South's decision to re-open with 1S rather than a take-out double looks strange: partner may have a better quality heart stack and be itching to defend 1H doubled. Here North might solve his problem over a double by bidding 1NT, which cannot be beaten.

Against 1S Ash led out three top hearts. Bennett discarded two diamonds

and South ruffed. Declarer does best to duck a spade now, win the diamond return, draw two rounds of spades and play diamonds till East ruffs with the outstanding trump. Instead he attacked his own communications by cashing one top diamond before ducking a spade. Bennett won the queen and returned the queen of clubs to the ace. Declarer now abandoned spades and played another top diamond, discarding a heart from dummy. East ruffed and led a club to West's king. West tried another diamond, dummy discarded another heart and East ruffed again. The next club was ruffed by South and overruffed with the king of spades for the seventh defensive trump trick and an unexpected one down.