DAILY BRIDGE CLUB

“I heard that you write,” my friend the English professor said to me in the club lounge. “What type of writer are you?”

“Bridge, mostly,” I replied. “Occasionally I get steamed enough to write an op-ed piece about some social issue.”

“Well, here’s a question for a writer,” he said. “What’s a 10-letter word that can be typed using only the top row of the keyboard?”

The prof left me to think about that and joined a penny Chicago game. In today’s deal, East made a lead-directing double of North’s Stayman two-club response. South’s two diamonds denied a four-card major suit but promised a club stopper. With neither feature, he would have passed. Against 3NT, West led the ten of clubs, and the prof, sitting East, followed with the six, forcing South to take one of his club tricks and preserving a link with West.

When South led a diamond to the queen next, the prof smoothly followed with the four. On the next diamond, he played the ten, and South played low, hoping West had held A-9. But West took the jack and led his last club, and the prof set up his suit with the ace of diamonds as an entry. Down two. The key to the prof’s excellent defense was a 13-letter word: “communication.”

South would succeed if East played the queen on the first club. South could duck, win the next club with the jack and lead a diamond to the queen. If East took the ace and led a third club, declarer could win, go to dummy and lead a diamond to his eight. He would make an overtrick.

That 10-letter word the prof had in mind was “typewriter.” South dealer

N-S vulnerable