QUICK CROSSWORD

Hubbard cynically wrote that an editor is “a person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.”

Every Sunday on my website, bridgeforeveryone. com, I alternate a declarer- play or defense problem. I concluded that this one was unsuitable. However, since the key defensive play was like wheat, not chaff, I decided that it would make a newspaper column.

Against three no- trump, West led the club 10, which denied the jack but could have included the ace. How did East plan the defense? North’s opening bid showed any 16- plus points. South’s double promised gamegoing values with no fivecard or longer suit.

Sitting East was Michel Lebel, one of France’s top players. After his awful one- heart overcall, he was very lucky that West had the best excuse for not leading a heart at trick one!

When West led the club 10, and declarer played low from the board, in a picosecond, we would have played the queen, third hand high. Then, a few nanoseconds later, declarer would have taken two diamond finesses and lost at most one heart, one diamond and two clubs.

Instead, Lebel played his club two at trick one. Yes, if South, a Dutch international, had played low from his hand, he would have made the contract. But understandably he won with his jack. Then, when East got in with the diamond king, he led his club queen, and West ran the suit for down two. Lebel won the 1987 defense of the year award from the International Bridge Press Association for that play. Copyright United Feature Syndicate ( Asia Features)