DAILY CROSSWORD
ACROSS
1 Free
6 Crusty formation 10 One in a farm
array
14 Truism
15 Kappa preceder 16 Entry
17 Saint toppers 18 Equine footwork 19 Glitz
20 Renewed one’s
energy, in a way 21 Counseling for
boomers’ kids? 24 Santa __: Sonoma
County seat 25 Complimentary
writers
26 Sign on a film studio employee’s door?
31 Words of desire 32 Room at the
hacienda
33 Fast hit
36 Gave for a while 37 Some rank
indicators 39 Corona product 40 Disturbance 41 “Write once, run anywhere” software
42 One with many
mouths to feed? 43 Altered clone of
actor Richard? 46 French gambling
game
49 Zero
50 Molecular manipulation technique ... and a hint to the starts of the three other longest puzzle answers 53 Sudden turn 56 Advantage 57 Bunches 58 Immune system
component 60 Food preservative 61 Cithara relative 62 Clear, in a way 63 “__ bien!”
64 Word appearing twice in a Woody Guthrie title 65 Synthetic polymer
DOWN
1 Turner of “The Bad and the Beautiful”
2 It’s a turnoff 3 What’s up at the deadline?
4 Mushy lump 5 “Yikes!”
6 Traffic or turn follower 7 Influence with flattery
8 Studying like crazy, say
9 Tub soothers 10 Interstate rumbler 11 Condemned Titan 12 Jumped
13 “Game of Thrones” accumulation 22 Zener cards presumably tested for it
23 “Show Boat” author Ferber 24 Take a load off 26 __ monster
27 Was required to pay
DAILY BRIDGECLUB:
On June 21 at the Birmingham, Ala., Duplicate Bridge Club, I participated in “The Longest Day,” an annual nationwide event to benefit Alzheimer’s research. Despite the excellent play of my partner, Dianne Wammack, we were edged out for first place.
I am convinced that the standard of play among all players is in decline. When Wammack and I were West and East in today’s deal, she led a heart against 3NT. Declarer took dummy’s queen, forced out the ace of clubs and won a diamond shift.
At that point, South can cash a second high diamond, come to the king of hearts and take the ace of diamonds. When West’s jack falls, declarer 28 Yucatán youngster 29 Sunni’s religion 30 Indoor __
33 Force user 34 NASA prefix 35 Muffin option 37 Left nothing out 38 Big event lead-in 39 Data measure 41 Ballet jump 42 Do a surfing maneuver 43 Shakes hands with, say has four diamonds and 12 tricks in all.
Instead, declarer ran the clubs, pitching two spades and a diamond. In the end, he won a spade finesse for 12 tricks. Had justice been served, West would have held the king of spades.
I found it discouraging that only one pair got to 6NT — a fine contract — and that the only declarer at slam went down!
DAILY QUESTION: You hold: ♠ J82 ♥ AQ7 ◆ K Q ♣ Q J 8 7 2. Your partner opens one diamond, you respond two clubs and he rebids two diamonds. What do you say?
ANSWER: A notrump hog would blast into 3NT and would probably survive; partner rates to have 44 Bonded
45 Weigh station unit
46 Get rid of
47 Wood for grilling planks
48 What “x” may be in trigonometry 51 Former NHL winger Kovalchuk 52 Uncertain 53 Gusto
54 “Just one more thing ...” 55 Narrow valley 59 Sound of woe a spade honor. Bid two hearts, a forcing bid in a new suit. Let your partner continue to describe his hand.