Bridge

At the Mad Hatter’s bridge game, the Queen of Hearts continued to boast of her pre-eminence.

“No ace or king dares capture me,” the Queen blustered.

“She doesn’t realize that losing a trick can be better,” the Queen of Diamonds told Alice. “Deal the cards.”

Alice played at four hearts on a “transfer” sequence, and West, the Hatter, led a trump. Alice considered putting up dummy’s queen (pleasing the Queen of Hearts) to finesse in diamonds. But if West had the king, he would lead a second trump. Then Alice would lack a fast dummy entry to ruff the third diamond and might be in trouble.

So, giving the Queen of Diamonds a nod, Alice won the first trump with the ace and led the A-Q of diamonds. The Hatter won and led his last trump, but Alice took the queen, ruffed dummy’s last diamond, and then led the ace and a low club. She ruffed a club return in dummy, drew trumps and forced out the ace of spades. Making four.

“See what I mean?” the Queen of Diamonds said with a smile.