BRIDGE

Have you ever heard of a “Thorpian Dummy”?

A regular on the Canadian Tournament and Trials scene for many years, Katie Thorpe (Kingsville, Ontario) is one of our country's all-time greats: multiple National Championships and International Representations with several World Womens' medals to her credit.

And even with that very impressive resume, Katie will always be best known for the dummys she delivered, seemingly out of the blue, to rescue her partner(s) from potentially disastrous undertaking(s).

In this auction, East-West's enterprising (but totally normal, I'd say) obstruction really put it to South: great playing strength but a significant hole in all three of his suits. And there was always that modern caution: “The five-level belongs to the opponents”.

Still, it seemed as if the opponents believed four hearts might make so maybe five hearts would be okay too.

But after Malcolm Ewashkiw (Belleville) put the spurs to his bidding horse and advanced to five hearts, West's immediate penalty double certainly created some doubt in the bidder's mind.

West did make an excellent opening lead in the form of that small spade (“maybe partner will be able to ruff the first or second round of the suit”) to be right that East was short in spades but the equal shortness in hearts was fatal. Mostly because North, unheard from in the bidding, tabled a truly Thorpian Dummy: trump fillers and the two black honour cards that would allow his partner to lose only one trick in those suits.

And while it wasn't actually Katie Thorpe who tabled that ultra-useful dummy, it was certainly reminiscent of her best contributions!