Mislead partner and declarer
Fran Lebowitz said, “Remember that as a teenager you are in the last stage of your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you.”
It was once believed that a teenager would never win an open world bridge championship. But it happened back in 2013, when Michal Klukowski from Poland captured the Rosenblum Cup at the age of 17. Two years later, he won the Bermuda Bowl, the most prestigious world title.
Klukowski surely would have found the best defense on this deal. What happens in four hearts after West leads the spade ace?
North’s two-spade cue-bid announced a heart fit and at least game-invitational values (at most eight losers).
When the deal was originally played, the first trick went spade ace, four, two, six. Then came the spade king: jack, three, nine. For want of anything better to do, West continued with the spade queen: heart seven, spade eight, spade 10.
Declarer took dummy’s two heart honors, played a club to his ace, drew the rest of East’s trumps and led a diamond. West won with his ace to save the overtrick.
“I had hoped to gain a trump trick,” commented East.
“Well, maybe you could have,” responded his more experienced partner.
West pointed out that East should have played high-low in spades, feigning a doubleton. Then South would surely have ruffed the third spade high on the board and gone down, losing two spades, one heart and one diamond.
This is the type of deceptive play that always works — unless you hold your cards badly!
SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. >> You don’t have to look far for evidence of San Francisco Giants infielder Donovan Solano’s hitting skills. It’s in the numbers from a superb 2020 campaign in which he hit .326 with an .828 OPS. It’s in the Silver Slugger Award he won last year for being the National League’s top offensive second baseman.
But Solano chooses not to focus on his success and accolades from last year. Instead, he’s trying to keep things simple, and take it one day at a time. Wednesday’s 3-for-3 performance in the Giants’ 8-6 win over the Chicago Cubs was a direct byproduct.
“My frame of mind was to go up the middle and to right field,” Solano said through a translator. “Just like the previous at-bats in the previous games, I was just hitting the ball with the tip of the bat. That’s what spring training is.”
Solano is hitting at a torrent pace this spring. The 33-year-old has six hits in 12 at-bats, including a home run. How’s he doing it? By following some of the most basic advice he could have received over the offseason and in the first several weeks of spring training: change absolutely nothing.
“Solano last spring, continuing into our summer camp, through the season and now this spring training,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said, “has been completely dependable and drives the baseball consistently.”
Solano was responsible for three of the Giants’ 10 hits against the Cubs on Wednesday. Wilmer Flores, who hit right after Solano, collected two hits of his own, including his second home run of the spring.
“I’ve been feeling great,” Flores said.
Flores and Solano find themselves in a rather unique scenario. Both are coming off career years at the plate and have seemingly stayed just as hot this spring. However, neither has cemented a role in the Giants’ starting lineup. The organization has no shortage of infielders on its active roster, creating a potential hurdle for Solano and Flores to find playing time.
HJELLE OFFERS ‘A DIFFERENT LOOK’ >>
Amid the 10hit, seven-run performance by the Giants on Wednesday it may have been easy to overlook the single inning of work from one of their top pitching prospects, 23-year-old righthander Sean Hjelle.
He entered the game in the eighth inning long after the bulk of the Giants’ major leaguers had already left the game, giving way to prospects and non-roster invitees. It’s a forgettable time to enter a spring training game. But that might be the only unremarkable thing about Hjelle’s presence on the mound.
At 6-foot-11 and 228-pounds, Hjelle is on the brink of history. If he makes it to the majors, he will tie former MLB pitcher Jon Rauch as the tallest player to ever play in the league. It’s something opposing teams can’t prepare for, and through a big grin and some chuckling, Kapler acknowledged the challenge.