WHEN THE TELEPHONE RINGS TOO EARLY

You are enjoying your breakfast and reading the bridge column in the paper. Suddenly the phone rings. You jump, then reach for the receiver. “Good morning.”

“Hi ...” You recognize the voice of your uncle. He knows you have had some success at the game but secretly thinks that he plays better than you. He calls only when he has a tough problem.

You write down the NorthSouth cards in today’s diagram. Before you can protest about the bidding, your uncle tells you that West leads the heart king and continues with the heart ace. You ruff and cash two top trumps, East discarding the club jack on the second.

“How would you continue, Nephew?”

At least you have a chance to return to your breakfast while you think. Clearly East has the club ace; otherwise, West would have opened the bidding. You have conceded two tricks, so you must avoid two club losers. This requires discarding three clubs from hand on dummy’s diamonds before West can ruff in with the spade jack and lead a club through dummy’s king.

There is only one way to do that: Assume West has four diamonds.

“All right, Uncle, I cash the spade queen and diamond king. Then I lead the diamond eight and finesse dummy’s 10.”

Immediately the line goes dead. Now you know that the 10 wins, allowing you to cash the diamond ace-queen and discard clubs while West has to follow suit impotently. West ruffs the diamond five, but you have discarded your penultimate club loser. Contract made.

By Steve Moore

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