Brilliant defense

England's Michelle Brunner, in the 2007 Venice Cup (Womens' World Team Championship) found a very clever defense to defeat a grand slam:

North-South had blasted their way to seven clubs on the uncontested auction

1C (1) - 1D (2)
2S (3) - 2NT
3C - 4C
5NT - 7C

(1) Strong, artificial, and forcing
(2) 0-7 HCP
(3) Huge hand with long spades

Michelle's partner led the jack of hearts, declarer covered with the queen, and Michelle ducked! She knew there were plenty of spade winners to cover the losing heart, so wouldn't be giving a trick away. Declarer's 5NT was asking for good trumps, so she knew that the only trick for their side could possibly be in the club suit. When she ducked smoothly, declarer found herself very conveniently in dummy to take the trump finesse...

Deja vu?

Last week I played the Fort Lauderdale Regional with Robert Todd. One afternoon, he showed me his latest article for the Sunshine Bridge News, ACBL District 9's bimonthly magazine.

Follow this link for that article. Read it before the rest of this one!

Two boards into the next session, we had this eerily similar defense:



N-S wound their way to 3H over our 3D. I started out with the queen of diamonds. Robert overtook with the king and switched to a low spade through declarer. South misguessed, playing low, and I won with the queen. I shot a spade to Robert's ace, and he returned the eight of diamonds (suit-preference) to my known jack. I then gave him a spade ruff for the first undertrick. My queen of clubs late made for a very satisfying down two.

Bridge on TV

...but not where I can see it, of course.

England's SkyTV has put together a celebrity bridge competition for their SkyArts channel. You can read all about it here.

Also, here's a short video of the introduction to the programme.

Does anyone know how we could see full episodes of this show?

Time off again...

The Southeastern Regional is over. We had a fabulous time in Fort Lauderdale, making new friends and playing some good bridge. I have a few hands to share... but right now, time to rest. What a week!