Spectacular result

“SHE kills me in team matches,” Cy the Cynic complained. “Now she’s burying me at matchpoints.”

Minnie Bottoms, my club’s senior member, wears old bifocals that make her mix up kings and jacks, often to opponents’ dismay.

“I was West in a duplicate,” Cy told me, “and Minnie was declarer at four spades. I led the king of clubs and shifted to the king of diamonds. Minnie took the ace and led a trump ... to her jack!” “Thinking it was the king,” I laughed. “When I discarded,” Cy said, “she drew trumps and had 10 tricks. Every other South went down at four spades, so we got a zero.”

HEART LOSER

Minnie’s play was right at IMPs where the aim is to make the contract. If West took the queen of trumps, Minnie could force out the ace of clubs and use dummy’s eight of trumps as an entry to discard her heart loser on the jack.

At matchpoints, Minnie’s play was wrong. Every North-South would be at four spades, so South must play for an overtrick. But that didn’t help Cy any.

DAILY QUESTION: You hold: ♠ None ♥ J976 ♦ KQ942 ♣A K 10 5. You open one diamond, your partner responds one spade, you bid two clubs and he jumps to three spades. What do you say?

ANSWER: Partner’s second-round jump in his suit is game-invitational. If he had a self-sufficient suit plus enough values for game, he could have bid four spades himself. Although your high-card structure isn’t bad, you have only 13 points and your spade support is nil. Pass.