The winning play is difficult to make

My favorite track on Pink Floyd’s “Ummagumma” album is “Grantchester Meadows” — one that must have been tough to play live in concert. This deal is also tough to get right in the real world. South is in four spades, and West leads the heart king. How would you tune the cards?

The North hand has 18 points and four aces, but it contains a surprising seven losers: two spades, two hearts, one diamond and two clubs. As aficionados of the Losing Trick Count will know, this makes the hand worth only a single raise of one spade to two spades! However, you have to let high point-count overrule the LTC. North just has to shoot out four spades.

The natural play is to win the first trick with the heart ace, cross to the club king and take the spade finesse. Here, though, you get the bad news when West discards the diamond two under the spade queen. Then, to make matters worse, East wins with the spade king, leads a heart to partner’s queen and ruffs the next heart. A moment later, the diamond king is the setting trick.

The only way to get home is to duck the first trick to cut the communications between the defenders’ hands.

In a 16-table duplicate, two Norths did raise to two spades, but got only a little over average because five declarers were allowed to make four spades and one was in the unbeatable three no-trump after never bidding spades.

Maybe that last pair, away from the bridge table, joins Pink Floyd in seeing “Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict”!