WHAT IS THE WORST SPLIT MANAGEABLE?

Geoffrey Chaucer, the great English poet who died in 1400, believed that the worst fortune that could befall a man was losing his wealth and remembering exactly what caused the disaster.

If you log into Bridge Base Online, click on casual and start a table, you have the choice of relaxed or competitive. What is the difference? My feeling is that at a competitive table, trumps divide worse and finesses lose more often than the mathematicians lead us to believe.

Even if that isn’t true, you should always try to allow for the worst if you can. In this deal, how should South play in four hearts after West leads the club king?

In the auction, North’s three-club rebid was a double negative, showing 0-4 points. After that, if South had bid only three hearts, it would have been nonforcing, showing exactly nine winners. If partner had no semblance of a 10th, he might pass. So, South jumped to four hearts, hoping he wasn’t missing a slam if partner had the spade queen and sufficient in hearts to give only one loser there.

Declarer, thinking there was no danger, led his heart queen at trick two. East took the trick perforce and returned a club. South ruffed and cashed the heart king. When East discarded a club, declarer moaned and collapsed into his chair. “How unlucky can I be?” He had to lose one spade and three hearts.

North was unsympathetic. “If trumps were 5-0, you had no chance. Otherwise, though, you had a safety play to guarantee at most two trump losers: Lead a low heart at trick two.”