DAILY CROSSWORD
ACROSS
Half of a stiff price to pay Chinese food additive Breed from Honshu
Sob story makeup
__ Nui: Easter Island
Jell-O flavor Food for the kitty? *British-owned American hotel chain Robert the Bruce, for one Speak with style Latin “to be” *Went on foot Boys Actress Longoria Substitute for Cat Deeley’s role on “So You Think You Can Dance” *Wind chill factor relative Jobs title, once Represent inaccurately Web access co. *Three-time U.S. Open champion “Semper fidelis” is one 43 Veterans 44 Refuge for
couples? 45 Italian
automaker 46 *Subject of much
debate
51 Golfer’s
transport 53 Night calls 55 Radius neighbor 56 With “The,” one of 50 since 8/21/1959, as hinted at by the answers to starred clues 58 Eyeglass frames 59 Have more People come to the house? 1 4 7 12 14 15 16 17 19 20 21 22 24 26 27 30 33 35 36 37 38 41 60 61 62 City near Anaheim Dueling sport Midler of “Hello Dolly” 63 Leb. neighbor 64 Cap initials at Busch Stadium
DOWN
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 14 18 23 25 Knee-deep (in) Chop-O-Matic maker Anti-harassment movement New Zealand settler Paint spill sound Stable pace In the style of Entered, as data “That went right over my head” Truckloads Heche of “Psycho” (1998) Fixed charge Valerie Harper sitcom
Get rid of Christmas __ Boxer who beat Frazier twice
DAILY BRIDGE CLUB:
A reader writes that he and his partner didn’t see eye to eye about the bidding in today’s deal.
“I was North,” he says, “and when my partner freely rebid two hearts, I thought I could put him in game. I expected him to have extra strength or longer hearts.”
At four hearts, South ruffed the third diamond, led a club to dummy and tried a trump to his jack. West won and returned a trump. South ruffed one club in dummy, but his jack was a loser at the end. Down one.
Since East hadn’t opened the bidding but had all the high diamonds, South’s trump finesse couldn’t work. He should take the A-K of trumps, then A-K of Ball game delayer Tuxedo part Former Canadian MLBer Repeat Happy __ Leading edge of cooler temperatures Cuts down Yale alum Thin soups Peter the Great, e.g. 40 401(k) kin,
briefly 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 36 39 spades, spade ruff (to overruff won’t help West), ace of clubs, spade ruff, king of clubs, good spade to pitch a club. The defense gets only West’s high trump.
As for the bidding, I sympathize with North, but many experts have ditched the “free bid” concept and would bid two hearts with no more than a good suit.
DAILY QUESTION: You hold: ♠ A5 ♥ AKJ109
◆ 103 ♣ J 5 4 2. Your partner opens one diamond, you respond one heart and he bids two clubs. What do you say?
ANSWER: Your winning contract might be 3NT or seven clubs. It might be four hearts or five clubs. To get more information 41 CT scan relative 42 “Sounds good” 44 Utterly confused 46 White with frost 47 Furry swimmer 48 Berth places 49 Not yet achieved, as a goal
50 Art class item 51 Atkins no-no 52 Toward shelter 54 Some parlors,
for short
57 Stun and keep the bidding low, bid two spades, a forcing “fourth-suit” action that merely asks him to bid again.