BRIDGE

BRIDGE

Neither vulnerable, South deals

NORTH

uK 10 2

uJ 4 2

vQ 9 7 3

w10 7 6

WEST EAST

u8 3 uJ 7

uK 8 5 3 uA Q 9 7 6

v5 vK J 2

wQ J 9 5 4 2 wA K 3

SOUTH

uA Q 9 6 5 4

u10

vA 10 8 6 4

w8

The bidding:

SOUTH WEST NORTH EAST

1u Pass 2u3u

4v 4u 4u All pass

Opening lead: King of u

Hard-Luck Louie was East in today’s deal, taken from the club’s Saturday night duplicate. Louie thought about doubling the final contract, which he was confident he could defeat, but he decided to respect his opponents and pass.

West led the king of hearts to get a look at dummy in case there was a suit that he needed to shift to. That wasn’t necessary on this deal. Louie overtook the king with the ace and tried to cash the ace and king of clubs. South ruffed the second club, cashed the ace of spades, and led a spade to dummy’s king. That drew the outstanding trumps and it all came down to handling the diamond suit. After long thought, declarer led the queen of diamonds from dummy. Louie did his best by not covering, but South stuck to his guns and ran the queen. Making four and well done by South!

”Nicely played,” said Louie. ”Many would have gotten the diamonds wrong. Against you, we should have bid on to five hearts.”

Lucky Larry also sat East and defended the same contract. His partner also led the king of hearts, which Larry also overtook. Instead of trying to cash his clubs, however, Larry made the devilish shift to the two of diamonds! Who could blame South for reading this as an ”obvious” singleton. Declarer rose with his ace of diamonds and could no longer make his contract.

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