Stamford Bridge Club shares the other activities members enjoy

Stamford Bridge Club has a number of social activities not involving bridge, writes member Trevor Thrower.

At the end of March we held one of of our quiz evenings with 20 teams of four competing. The event was won by Jane & Simon Scriven, Jo and John Higton.

On May 28, the club will be having a spring walk with an option of one hour or two hour walks, followed by lunch and then bridge.

The final of Northamptonshire's teams of four knockout was closely fought between two teams of Stamford Bridge Club players. The winners were Alan Bamford, Graham Flew, Doreen Simpson and Helen Skelton. They will represent Northamptonshire in the national final in June.

Hand of the Week

Quite often we encounter potentially blocked suits, for example AK643 opposite Q985 with no outside entry to the five-card suit. In this case declarer must make sure that they play the 9 and 8 under the A and K, so the fourth round of the suit is won by the 6. This week's deal involves a declarer play problem where the blockage is more extreme. South opens a strong notrump. Although north has only nine high card points, they should upgrade the hand because of the very good five-card suit and therefore should respond with three notrump. West has an obvious Queen of diamonds lead. Declarer has 4 top tricks outside clubs and a possible five tricks in clubs but a 3-1 break in clubs will mean that declarer will have to win the fourth round in the south hand with no possible entry to the fifth club trick in dummy. The queen of diamonds is overtaken by east with the king, declarer ducks this and has to take the second round of diamonds with the ace. There is a good chance that the diamonds are breaking 5-2. Declarer now plays two rounds of clubs and finds the news that they are breaking 3-1. Declarer knows that the defence can only take 4 diamond tricks. There is a clever play to unblock the clubs by playing a diamond from dummy and discarding one their blocking clubs. The defence can cash two further rounds of diamonds but declarer can discard two of their low spades and hearts. Nine tricks will be made with 5 club tricks, 2 spade, one heart tricks and one diamond trick.

Tip of the Week

If you have blocking cards that stop you running tricks in a suit find a way of discarding the blocking card.