I don’t know about the only gay in the village but I am starting to feel like the last woman standing. In the two most recent events I have played, the Cavendish Pairs in Monaco and the superb Vilnius Cup, I was the only female playing and frankly, ladies, I missed you.   Vytas and Erikas Vainikonis invited eight of the strongest teams from Europe to Vilnius and treated us to three days of battling it out in a double round robin. Well, I won’t keep you in suspense any longer, WE WON!

Here is my partner, the Great Malinowski, the only declarer in the room to bring home this contract.

First let me say, before you write in, that this contract is cold off! As you can see, the defence have four hearts and two spades to take from top. BUT, and this is what separates great players from, well me, despite being against world-class opposition, Artur saw a tiny possibility. West led ♦3, dummy’s 8 held and Artur popped in the 5. He continued with three top clubs, West discarding a heart on the third round. Now he carefully crossed to dummy playing the ♦9 from hand to the Ace — looking like a man with four diamonds and a big problem. He cashed the ♣J, he and West pitching spades, and played a Heart to East’s King, who exited with a spade. West cashed his two spades and, not wanting to give dummy a trick for the ♠J, and because of the brilliantly innocent ♦9, figured out declarer was 3,3,4,3 and fatally exited another diamond to force declarer to play hearts from hand…! That was nine tricks and 14 imps to us.

Genius!