By Tony Campbell

ONE of the easy mistakes to make when playing a hand as declarer is to miss the fact that you can get a suit blocked, preventing you from making all the tricks in that suit. Such a hand turned up last week at Penarth Bridge Club. With 20 points, and two tens East opened with 2NT. West, with a four-card spade suit, asked if East had one too, by bidding 3 clubs. East’s reply of 3D told West that he had either 4 hearts or 4 spades. The puppet Stayman convention then makes West bid the major he did not have, so that, if his partner has the same major, then the contract is played by the strong hand. But, having 4 hearts, East bid 3NT. South led the 4 of diamonds, the fourth highest in that suit. North won the trick with his queen and returned a spade. Not wanting to block the spade suit, East played his king, which was covered by South’s ace. South then returned another spade, which was won by West’s queen. East now took the heart finesse, winning with the jack. He then cashed the ace and king of hearts. Now, how to play the clubs? When East played the ace, king, and queen of clubs, he played first the 5, and then the 7 and ten from dummy, enabling him to cash 5 club tricks. If he had carelessly played the 3 of clubs on the ace, the suit would have been blocked, and East would not have been able to get back to his hand to cash the fifth club. So, in the end, East made 11 tricks – 2 spades, 3 hearts, one diamond, and five clubs for a top. Well played.

Weekly results at Penarth Bridge Club

Tuesday 28th January 2020. 1st John Salisbury & Meryl Skipper (60.4%); 2nd Tony Campbell & Brian Hardy (56.3%); 3rd Martin Thomas & Val Hetheridge (54.2%). 1st Martin Thomas & Val Hetheridge on handicap. Thursday 30th January 2020 1st N/S Cyrus & Carmel Hughes; 1st E/W Wyn Williams & Avril Collins. Friday 31st January 2020. 1st Peter Millar & Mike Best (65.8%); 2nd Tim Barsby & Helen Houston (63.0%); 3rd Simon Gottschalk & Simon Richards (58.3%). 1st on handicap Peter Millar & Mike Best. Penarth Bridge Club is a warm and friendly club that meets every Tuesday and Friday at Trinity Church Hall, Woodland Place, CF64 3EN. There is plenty of parking. We ask players to be in their seats by 6.45 pm, so that we can set the movement for a prompt start at 7 pm. A machine deals the boards, so you can have a print out of all the hands at the end of the play. You can see each hand, compared with the results, on the web site https://www.bridgewebs.com/penarth/. There is also an improvers’ session every Thursday morning starting at 10 am. We have several social events during the year, linked to bridge. Contact Tony Campbell or see the web site https://www.bridgewebs.com/penarth/ for further information. Table up.

Professor Tony Campbell, campbellak@cf.ac.uk.