Stamford Bridge Club is in full swing for winter competition

The winter competition season is now in full swing and we are enjoying excellent attendances at the club, writes Trevor Thrower of Stamford Bridge Club.

Beginners' sessions (Thursday mornings and evenings) have started, but if you missed them and would like to learn to play bridge we will have further courses running in January. Details are on our website www.bridgewebs.com/stamford.

Hand of the Week

Notrump contracts are a race between declarer and defence to set up tricks in their suits. Occasionally declarer may need to set up tricks in two suits and it may be important which suit is played first. Especially playing notrump contracts one of the defenders' hands is frequently a danger hand that you want to keep off play.

After the heart 10 to the ace and the heart 6 return you have two heart winners, one spade winner and one diamond winner. So we will need five more tricks from the minor suits. We can see three slow winners in clubs after we knock out the ace and two more slow winners in diamonds if we lose to the King. In this case the danger hand is West who is likely to hold a five card heart suit. The knave of hearts is one more stop in defender's suit.

Where we may have to lose the lead twice, we do not want to lose the second time to the danger hand. If West has both the ace of clubs and the king of diamonds we will go down unless the hearts break 4-4. If the diamond king is in the East hand then it is finessable and we then have three diamond tricks without losing the lead in diamonds. So the plan is to play diamonds first and it is essential that declarer starts playing diamonds by playing the diamond jack from dummy so that they can follow it up by playing small to the queen if the knave holds. In this instance West wins the diamond king and continues with a heart knocking out your final stop in that suit. Now you have to play clubs hoping the ace is in the East hand remembering to unblock the diamonds so that you can cash the diamond in dummy when you get there in clubs.

Tip of the Week

If you have to set up two suits potentially losing the lead twice then try to ensure the second time you lose the lead is not to the danger hand.