BRIDGE with Tannah Hirsch

Fred hadn’t played bridge since Esther’s birthday two months ago, but he got the urge to play and invited Esther to the local duplicate. Esther was thrilled.

She opened a weak-two bid as South and things escalated quickly. All this cue-bidding and doubling made her nervous, but she had a pretty good hand for a weak two-bid and showed that with her second bid. Fred, who knew Esther would not open two diamonds with a four-card major, put her in game and East, who had played against Esther before, doubled smugly.

The defense started with the ace and another heart. East won and shifted to a spade, won in hand by Esther. She counted 10 tricks and saw no chance for an 11th, so she started cashing her trumps. They came to this position after five rounds:

East still had to discard, but his position was hopeless. A spade would allow Esther to cross to a club, ruff a spade, then get back to the board with another club to cash the good spades. East shed a club instead. Esther had no idea about any of this, but she didn’t want to cash her last trump. It was safer to keep it. She cashed the board’s two high clubs and king of spades before ruffing a spade back to her hand. She showed her last card, the club eight, resigned to her fate. Lo-and-behold, it was the only club left and she scored up her contract! “Nicely played,” said Fred. Esther was elated. A compliment from Fred!