bridge

September 19, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

bridge

Neither vulnerable. South deals.

NORTH

xA 7 6

u7 5

vA K J 8 6

wJ 5 3

WEST EAST

xJ xK Q 9 2

uQ 4 2 u10 9 8

vQ 5 4 v10 7 2

wA Q 10 9 7 2 w8 6 4

SOUTH

x10 8 5 4 3

uA K J 6 3

v9 3

The bidding:

SOUTH WEST NORTH EAST

1x 2w 2v Pass

2u Pass 2x Pass

3u Pass 4x Pass

Pass Pass

Opening lead: Jack of x

Heading into the latter part of the year, Tommy took stock. The cards had been good to him. Suits were breaking badly with monotonous regularity so Tommy, who could not stand the prosperity of normal breaks but who became a tiger at the table when faced with an evil trump break, had been fattening his wallet at the expense of the other members. Here is another example where his chronic overbidding brought unexpected results.

There are those who would pass initially with the South hand, and some who would be content to play a spade partial with the North-South cards. Not Tommy. He happily opened, then pushed on toward game, and North, who had taken a conservative preference on the previous round, could not be held back.

West led the jack of spades, taken by dummy’s ace. The ace and king of hearts were cashed, and a heart ruff established two winners in Tommy’s hand. A spade was led from dummy and East rose with queen, West discarding a high club. A club to the ace picked up Tommy’s king and, to prevent Tommy from scoring a cheap ruff, thereby shortening his trumps, West cleverly shifted to a diamond.

Tommy finessed the jack, then ruffed a club in hand. The ace and king of diamonds followed, declarer discarding a heart from hand. East was down to K 9 of trumps and a club while Tommy had 10 8 of trumps and a heart. A winning diamond was led from the table and East was a dead duck. If the defender discarded, so would Tommy and another diamond would limit East to one trump trick. If East ruffed low, Tommy would overruff and play his high heart. If East ruffed high, Tommy would discard his heart. East was powerless to prevent Tommy from taking two of the last three tricks.

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