Goren on Bridge

The sight of dummy made Hard Luck Louie regret that he had agreed to play minor-suit transfers. Had he just raised to three no-trump, North would have had the same 10 tricks that Louie had in diamonds. The transfer had been too tempting. On the plus side, East’s double marked him with both the king of clubs and the ace of spades. Louie won the opening heart lead with dummy’s ace, led a diamond to his ace, drawing the trumps, and led a spade to dummy’s jack, hoping to force the ace. When that lost to the queen, East exited with a heart and Louie had to fall back on the doomed club finesse and he finished down one. “My luck is unbelievable!” said Louie. “Three out of three cards offside.”

When Lucky Larry played this deal in a subsequent round, he bid five diamonds over his partner’s one no-trump opening and played it there undoubled. He won the opening heart lead in dummy and immediately ruffed a heart. He cashed the ace of diamonds, led a diamond to dummy’s queen, and ruffed dummy’s last heart. He led a spade to the jack and lost to East’s queen, but East had no answer. Rather than leading a club into the ace-queen, East tried a tricky low spade. Larry discarded a club on this not caring who had the ace. The defense couldn’t prevent Larry from bringing home 11 tricks. Well played!

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