Bridge

A couple of weekends ago, the Scottish Bridge Union ran the inaugural British Isles Trophy, a mixed team’s event for the Home Counties. It was played on RealBridge, the website that allows players to both see and hear each other.

Bridge, being the last bastion of ‘hilarious’ misogyny, always has an alpha chuckle when somebody says, and somebody always does: ‘There isn’t a good pair in the room!’

I asked my friend Nick, who ironically always plays with his preferred partner, Nathalie Shashou, if any good hands came up played by a woman. ‘That might be a struggle,’ he smirked but proceeded to give me this one played by Ceri Pierce for the winning Welsh team.

This was a huge hand for Wales, who won the trophy by one VP ahead of the EBU team. Decide on the line of play in 6♦️ on the ♣️J lead.

It looks so natural to set up the Heart suit, but that could take a while; declarer had the uncertainty of not knowing where the ♠️K was, and if trumps were 4-1 she could very easily lose control.

It’s always good to keep an eye on the possibility of setting up dummy instead, and this is what Ceri did. She won the ♣️A and ruffed a Club, then played ♦️A and another to dummy. When trumps broke evenly, she could ruff another Club, return to dummy with the ♥️K, draw the last trump, and simply give the defence the King of Spades. Had trumps turned out to be 4-1, it would have required the ♠️K onside.

Well done Wales. Nice to know there was at least one good pair in the room!