MORE BAD LUCK BALANCED ELSEWHERE

Edward Ugel, a sales and marketing expert, said, “Worrying about gray hair when your weight’s soaring out of control is like mowing your lawn while your house is on fire.”

Yesterday, we had a deal in which a bad trump break was mitigated by a lucky lie in a side suit. Here is another. South was in six hearts. What did he do after winning the first trick with the diamond ace?

North might have jumprebid four hearts with his six-loser hand. South immediately bid what he hoped he could make. He knew that moving slower probably wasn’t going to help him, so he kept the defenders in the dark.

South had a possible loser in each red suit. However, if the trumps were behaving, he rated to take 12 tricks via four spades, five hearts, one diamond and two clubs. But after cashing his heart ace and leading a second heart, West’s club discard was a blow. Now declarer had to eliminate all of his diamond losers before East could ruff in and lead a diamond to his partner’s queen. How could South do that?

The only chance was to find East with four spades. Then if the suit was played without loss, when East ruffed the fifth spade, declarer would be discarding his last diamond.

If East had four spades to his partner’s two, he was twice as likely to hold the spade jack. So South bravely played a spade to his nine. When it won, he cashed the spade ace, led a club to the king and pitched his three low diamonds on the spades to sneak home. Copyright United Feature Syndicate (Asia Features)