Hope for the best with what is left

BY PHILLIP ALDER

Robert R. Coveyou, a research mathematician who worked at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and, for three years, at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, said, “The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.”

A random-number generator is used to produce deals for tournaments and duplicates.

They satisfy a priori expectations better than hand-shuffled deals.

At the bridge table, sometimes you need to get lucky, but good players always seem to leave less to chance. How should the play and defense proceed in this threeno-trump contract after West leads his fourth-highest spade?

Although South has two suits without stoppers, he should open one no-trump to show his handtype and strength.

At trick one, East should play his spade three. When you cannot contribute at least the nine, give count.

South has eight top tricks: three spades and five diamonds. But to get all of those diamond tricks, declarer needs to unblock his ace and king, then get into the dummy. Clearly, he will lead a club to do that.

However, West has a chance to defeat the contract. Trick one marks South with the top three spades, then he plays off the high diamonds for a total of 16 points. East must have the heart ace, and with luck he has the jack also. When South leads a club at trick four, West must win with his ace and shift to the heart king — highlow with a doubleton. Then he must not be distracted by East's playing the heart three — he cannot afford to signal with his nine.