THE BRIDGE COLUMN

Both vulnerable, North deals Hard Luck Louie was bursting with confidence. The club’s Saturday night duplicate was going extremely well for him. His trump suits were splitting normally for a change and even a finesse or two had worked.

Louie ducked the opening spade lead in dummy to East’s king. East returned the jack of spades, suggesting that the suit was splitting 5-3. Louie won with dummy’s ace and saw that he was going to need five tricks from one of the minors. The chance of a 3-3 split with the queen onside was equal in both suits, but Louie wisely decided to play on clubs rather than diamonds. The 10 of clubs meant that the queen doubleton onside would still give him five club tricks, but a queen doubleton of diamonds onside would not do him any good. Feeling like a great bridge analyst, Louie cashed the ace of clubs and led a club to his jack. West won this with the queen and cashed three more spade tricks for down one. “Here we go again”, thought Louie.

Lucky Larry’s partner had rebid only two no-trump, but Larry had enough to carry on to game. The defense started the same way and Larry had the same problem. Larry viewed the 10 of clubs differently and he decided to combine his chances. He started by cashing the ace and king of clubs. When the queen fell, he had nine tricks. Had the queen not fallen, Larry would then have tried the diamond finesse. Well done!