The bridge world is coming back to life with a bang. The World Championships were held (live) in March, the Europeans in June, the Rosenblum Cup (transnational teams) is coming up in Poland mid-August, and tucked in between, the ACBL’s Summer National Spingold Teams, won by Pierre Zimmermann’s brand-new, unstained, all-singing, all-dancing, glittering team, who beat the Street team by one IMP!

I highly recommend kibitzing on BBO. I watched the Spingold as much as I could and I like to think I learned a bit. There was much chat from the commentators about good players showing great technique in the card play – they take a ruff here and unblock a middle card there – but for most of us it’s hard to understand exactly why they do it. We saw excellent technique on this hand from an early round of the Spingold:

West naturally led the Queen of Clubs. Declarer won and ran the ♥Q to West, who played another Club.

At this point he paused and assessed his resources; he needed to avoid two losers in Diamonds. If trumps broke 2-2 he could eliminate the black suits, but a little foresight was required.

South showed impressive technique here by playing a Spade to hand and ruffing a Spade in dummy before coming to hand with the Ace of trumps. When trumps broke, the path was clear for the elimination: ruff the last Spade, come to hand with the ♦A and ruff the last Club.

Now a Diamond to the Queen – West wins the King but has to give a ruff and sluff.

Nice.