Louie in a hurry

The club’s Saturday night duplicate was well under way when Hard Luck Louie became declarer in today’s deal.

Louie won the opening heart lead with dummy’s ace and saw that the contract would make easily if the outstanding trumps split 2-2. The best chance other than that was to find West with the king of diamonds, so Louie crossed to his hand with the ace of spades and led a low diamond toward dummy. West stepped up with his king and led the queen of spades. Louie grabbed this with his king and led a low diamond to dummy’s queen. He cashed dummy’s ace of clubs and led another club. East won this with his jack and led a low heart to the 10 and king. Louie tried to ruff a club back to his hand, but West over-ruffed and led a heart to East’s queen for down one. ‘Curse my luck,’ said Louie.

Lucky Larry declared the same contract with the same opening lead. He also won the first trick in dummy, led a spade to his ace, and then led a low diamond. When West rose with his king and led the queen of spades, Larry saw the potential problem and patiently ducked this trick. Another spade from West would have made life easy for Larry. West reverted to hearts, but Larry won with dummy’s king, cashed the queen of diamonds, and crossed to his hand with the king of spades. A heart was discarded on the ace of diamonds and a heart ruff then gave Larry 10 tricks. Nicely played!