Goren Bridge
Modern players have gotten more sophisticated when opener rebids one no-trump. They use an artificial two-club bid with invitational hands and they use a two-diamond bid with game-forcing hands. Over two diamonds, North didn’t want to bid no-trump again without a stopper in either minor, so he intelligently rebid his excellent heart suit. This might have deterred South, but he aggressively drove to slam once he found a spade fit.
The slam is a poor one due to the loaded heart values opposite a singleton. South looked at the traditional way to play this trump suit — cash the king and then lead low to the jack. This would require a 3-2 split and for East to hold the queen. This is about a 2-1 underdog. Declarer thought he could do better by playing for a 4-3 split in hearts. He won the opening club lead with the ace and cashed dummy’s three top hearts, shedding his two remaining clubs.
When hearts proved to split 4-3, he continued with a fourth heart, ruffing East’s jack with the jack of spades. This would have brought home the slam had East started with three spades to the queen. West overruffed and tried to cash a high club. South ruffed, cashed the ace of spades, and then led a spade to dummy’s king. When this drew the outstanding trumps, South discarded his low diamond on dummy’s 10 hearts. Well done! of
Dear Amy: We live and socialize in a well-off neighborhood. My husband and I have one child.
We like to travel and do exciting things. We do not lavish our child with an abundance of toys and feel that experiences are more important.
We were close friends with another couple with two children, ages 8 and 6. These kids have amassed a huge amount of extravagant toys, such as electric gokarts. These things are not important to me and my husband, and we’d like them to not be important to our son.
Their 8-year-old son, “Sammy,” likes to tell anyone who will listen, how much things cost. He will then proceed to not allow his friends to use these toys, for fear they will break them.
This is very off-putting to me, so I have distanced my family from theirs.
Recently, the wife of this couple asked what she had done to offend me because we don’t spend time together anymore.
I hesitate to tell her how I feel about her children’s lavish toys and her son quoting the price of them. I don’t want her to think I am envious, because I am not. I just have different values. How should I handle this? — Too Many Toys in Texas
Dear Too Many Toys: You are judging your son’s friendship based on your adult metric, and it is obvious that you hold a harsh judgment about how this other family operates.
I think it’s a good thing for children to be exposed to all sorts of families, in part because this can help them to notice differences between people, and learn to accept, or reject, through their own growing discernment.
Be honest with your friend. Tell her, “Sammy is having a hard time sharing his cool stuff. He likes to say how much things cost. I’m having a hard time with it.”