The Bridge Column

Hard Luck Louie was “feeling his oats” when he jumped to game. He caught a suitable dummy, however, especially with the king of spades almost certainly well placed after the auction. The defense started with three rounds of diamonds, West ruffing the third diamond with his six of spades. Louie over-ruffed with dummy’s 10 and led a spade to his queen. The king was onside, as expected, but when West showed out, there was an unavoidable spade loser plus a club yet to lose, and Louie could not make his contract. “Do you believe my luck?” said Louie. “Something always happens to me.”

When Lucky Larry played this deal, he made a0 general purpose game try of three hearts over East’s three diamond bid — there was no other invitational bid available, but he also got to game when his partner accepted the invitation. The defense started the same way, but Larry saw the danger when West ruffed the third diamond. There was an unavoidable club loser on the deal, and Larry decided to give up that loser right away. He discarded a club from dummy on the third diamond rather than over-ruffing.

Larry was still dependent on the spade finesse for his contract, but he kept dummy’s trumps intact. Larry won the club shift with dummy’s ace and ran the jack of spades. When that worked, he repeated the spade finesse and claimed his contract. Well played!