Did you know that X-Clubs deals are being played in just about one third of New Zealand's clubs? It's like you can have a mini-NZ-Wide Pairs every time you play at club. Check out our Results pages to see which clubs are involved. But that's just the start! James Ward, founder and CEO of Pianola has generously allowed us free use of his fantastic results reporting service. All you have to do if your club plays X-Clubs deals is to send in your email address from this site to get a personalised invitation to create a Pianola log-in for yourself.

We are very fortunate to have a regular commentator on X-Club's Wednesday Night deals. Vil Gravis is an author of long standing and we are privileged to host his lifetime's articles in pdf form on this site. Click on the Vil's Books tab above to see for yourself.

The 2017 Babich NZ-Wide Pairs was scored using Bob Fearn's Compass scoring program: the power behind X-Clubs. We had the first cut of 50 clubs out by midnight. The remaining nine results were in by midday Saturday allowing us to create the final reports for the 1018 pairs that took part - the largest number in many years.

Board 9 Dealer N EW Vul from Wednesday 25/10/17

	T432 AJ92 T3 743
J6 T5 K9765 KT52		95 Q86 QJ842 AQ6
	AKQ87 K743 A J98

When this deal was played, all the Souths at Hutt received a low diamond lead against a spade contract. Some were in 4S, others only in 3S. I won't go into the pros and cons of how to bid the NS hands today, instead I have a problem that I want to set the reader. How best to play 4S when West leads the six of diamonds.

A snapshot of who's getting the most enjoyment (ie bridge) out of life: (source - weekly Leagues table analysing the last 50 weeks - sortable by column)

First thing this morning I received the following email from one of last night's players:
“Question:
Board 7 from yesterday - was just wondering if I had grounds to search for slam. The bidding went: PASS - PASS - PASS - 1H - PASS - 3H - PASS - 4C - PASS - 4H - PASS - PASS - PASS. As you can see my partner (West) "lied" about her aces (she was pretty sick yesterday) so I left it in 4H and made 6H. I presume there are also other ways to search for/show singletons etc.”

“Tips and Quips” is available from Vil (email villyn@xtra.co.nz) and most bridge clubs. Vil answers any queries via email, so will be happy to receive any comments or requests from interested players.