Janet de Botton

Bridge | 21 August 2014

issue 23 August 2014

It’s August — that time of year again — and I am in France, as usual, on my annual holiday. Hot sun, delicious food and drink, yet still the bitter shadow of envy casting its pall. I am missing Brighton and the two-week congress that everyone I know is playing.

Many congratulations to my teammate, Tom Townsend, who won the Brighton Pairs, playing with Mark Teltscher. Tom’s immense experience helped him work out the best way to make East go wrong on this hand:

1♣ was prepared, and West’s choice of lead was the passive ♠5. Clearly, the defence have missed their best lead of a Club but the question was how to convince them to continue Spades, rather than finding the deadly switch.

First, Tom played the ♠King from dummy. Apart from looking like a panic-card, it has a chance of winning trick one, and he wouldn’t have to worry about a switch.

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