On this innocuous hand from last Tuesday's Pairs, the author failed to cover himself in glory after passing his partner's protective take-out double (bidding 3C would have netted +130 for a below-average score). 2Sx should be defeated by one trick which would have been a shared top. The key to the defence is to lead Hs (possibly after cashing 2 clubs) and to duck trumps twice, so that if declarer then takes AS and plays on Hs the defence can cash 3 diamonds. If declarer plays on diamonds before tackling trumps, to attempt to ruff the third diamond in dummy, then the defence can score a H ruff.

The club Teams of Four competition for the Timberlake Cup was won by Richard Fedrick, Andrew Southwell, Dave Norman and David Dawson

Lynne Hiorns and Tracey Tibos won the club Pairs competition for the Norman Cup on January 21st 2025

The Mayfield Red team won the Surrey Teams of 8 competition on January 5th 2025. They now qualify for the Regional heat of the Garden Cities Trophy. The team was Richard Fedrick, Andrew Southwell, David Norman, David Dawson, Arun Suri, Peter Lee, Richard Granville, Graham Sadie. Peter and Arun achieved the best X-IMPs score across the field with +84.59 IMPS, and Neil Gayner and Julian Hemsted (playing in the Mayfield Blue team) were fourth with +52.01

Recent EBU promotions:

Julie Kamieniecka  1 Star Premier Regional Master

Arun Suri  1 Star Grand Master
Julie Allman  County Master
 

Maria Martin and Julie Allman won the Ladies Pairs at the club on November 19th

Surrey finished 2nd in the Tollemache (inter-county teams of 12) and qualified for the final. 7 of the 12 are Mayfield members: Messrs Lee, Fedrick, Southwell, Sadie, Granville, Dawson and Norman.

David Dawson & David Norman Won the Harold Poster cup at the EBU Summer Meeting 

Julian Hemsted & Alan Bailey won the Liz Phillips and Ann Madden & Maria Martin won the Committee Cup for ranked pairs on 23rd July 2024

Roger Morton & Alan Bailey,Tony Scouller & Tom Peer won the Dorothy Williamson Handicap Teams Cup on 25th June 2024

Congratulations to Peter Lee and Dave Norman who won the National Pairs recently, repeating their victory of 2023. This is the sixth time Peter has won, a record we believe.

Julie Allman and Derek Ash won the Cliff Street Trophy for the best score vs their NGS handicap on 19th March

Robin Griffiths won the Mayfield Cup for the highest number of matchpoints scored over the entire year (April 2023-March 2024)

Sue and Paul Chapman won the Mixed Pairs cup on 14th May

Each week we send out an email asking players to indicate if they are playing next Tuesday. This was started after the pandemic when sometimes we didn't get four tables, which was seen as the minimum number needed for a proper duplicate movement.

As attendance has improved, we have rarely failed to reach that four table minimum, so we have stopped sending the confirmation email.