Daily Bridge Club

Dim and dimmer

A peaceful park occupies the city block across from my club. If the weather allows, players retreat there to eat a brown-bag lunch or to reflect on a losing session at the table.

“Grapefruit’s over at the park, warming up for the penny game,” Cy the Cynic told me. “He’s counting the squirrels and noting how big they are.”

“How will that improve his game?” I asked.

“Not his game,” Cy said. “He’s practicing critter-sizing.”

Grapefruit, our sourpuss member, badgers his partners without mercy. He was today’s East, and West’s bid of two clubs conventionally showed length in both major suits. Against 3NT, West led a conventional queen of hearts, asking East to play the jack if he had it. Grapefruit played the deuce, and South had to play low.

West then shifted to a club, and South won with the ace and lost the diamond finesse. He won Grapefruit’s heart return with the ace and claimed nine tricks — four clubs, four diamonds and a heart — and Grapefruit told the kibitzers that a light was on in West’s brain, but someone had been playing with the dimmer switch.

“You want me to lead another heart, knowing declarer has the A-J left?” West snarled.

How should West defend?

West can’t continue hearts at the second trick, but a club shift is unlikely to help. Instead, West must shift to the queen of spades. If South takes dummy’s king and comes to his hand to finesse in diamonds, East can win and return a spade, and West will take three spades for down one. South dealer Both sides vulnerable