A Happy Christmas to all readers. As a special 'treat' for readers, here is a reproduction of a poser that will feature in the Hutt Club's “Finesse” magazine for December. Readers are asked to send me (villyn@xtra.co.nz) their solutions. This problem will be so instructive as to teach the reader just about every aspect of declarer play, so do give it a go. My 'solution' will appear in the first Wednesday review for the new year.

You are SOUTH and, after West has opened the bidding with 1C, you have somehow managed to propel yourself into 6S.

Contract: 6S by South. Opening Lead: KING OF CLUBS
North (dummy)

T8

A872

QJ

A9752

You (South)

AKQJ732

963

AK

6

1. As closely as you can, reproduce the West hand
2. After West leads the KING OF CLUBS against your 6S, what is your best chance of making your slam?

From Wednesday 16/11/2016.
This week there were a number of hands where slam COULD be made, but only one deal where slam should have been easy to bid and make:
Board 17 Dealer N Nil Vul

	7 T9632 A842 KQ9
QJ6 Q T9765 8742		T98532 54 Q3 JT5
	AK4 AKJ87 KJ A63

Congratulations to Barry Jones & Jenny Millington of Hamilton. They topped a field of 998 pairs in the Babich 2016 NZ-Wide Pairs with a score of 68.63%, narrowly beating out two other pairs in the 68's. We started scoring at 11pm on the Friday night; most of the action was over by 1pm. On the Saturday morning we were still waiting for six clubs to get their data in or corrected, and the final scores were posted by 11:30am. Just a shade over 12 hours but, if all clubs had been successful in sending their results in, we could have wrapped it up in two hours. NB - the final club, for whom we waited another five hours, finally had to give up trying to produce their file. Sadly, it had gotten lost.

On behalf of all who took part I wish to send a huge vote of thanks to Bob Fearn, ex Tokoroa player now resident in Seattle. Compass scoring has been Bob's life's work and, like so many others involved with this game, he mostly does it all for love. In extending Compass X-Clubs scoring to handle this mighty job, Bob has provided an invaluable tool to Bridge in New Zealand.

Your club, too, can enjoy a similar scaled-down NZ-Wide Pairs by joining the 30-odd clubs that play X-Club deals every session. That's over one quarter of all NZ clubs playing the same deals simultaneously every day of the week. It's free and it's transparent while making life easier for your members. Ask anytime by using the Contact Us tab in the top meny bar.

Tips for viewing the NZ-Wide Pairs results:

• Use the Wide View tab above
• Search for names with CTRL-F
• Click on any column header in a Ladder file to sort by that column

NZW Scorers Anna, Mike & Jan - Selfie. MIA - Bob Fearn in Seattle

... albeit temporarily. He is still having trouble with his wrists and typing is giving him grief but Vil is happy to do this sort of thing when a reader has anything that would be of interest to others. He writes:

One of my readers has sent in some interesting deals for my comment. I am using them for this Wednesday Review though the hands did not occur on a Wednesday. But the questions asked and the points I would like to make are interesting nevertheless.

Dealer E ALL Vul

	KJ854 K94 KT5 93
T62 T86 AJ9872 7		AQ97 AQJ5 Q KQ52
	3 732 643 AJT864

From Wednesday 28/09/2016
Board 4; I just could not go past it without comment. How often does one get dealt a 29 point hand? And when one does it's not always easy to reach the correct end results. This one SHOULD have been reasonably easy for NS to bid IF both partners had a basic understanding of how very big hands are bid. But......

Board 4 Dealer W ALL Vul

	AQ AKT AKQ6 AK54
8752 9732 T753 6		J3 QJ65 82 JT972
	KT964 84 J94 Q83