ACES ON BRIDGE
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny.’
— Isaac Asimov
Today’s deal comes straight from the Menagerie, with the Hideous Hog declaring in one room, while in the other room the Rueful Rabbit (whose mistakes always seem to turn out well for him) was West.
In both rooms, the final contract was three diamonds. In one room, the Hog added on two tricks for his ability as declarer and jumped to three diamonds at his third turn. In the other room, the auction went as shown.
The final contract seemed destined to be made. Having no entry to dummy, declarer had no choice but to lay down the diamond king and subsequently drop West’s doubleton jack to make nine tricks. He would lose only two spades, a diamond, and a club.At the Hog’s table, East shifted to a trump at trick two, but the Hog refused to fall for the trap and rejected the finesse of the jack to make his contract.
You might think a defense was nigh impossible to find, but in the other room, after winning the opening club lead,
East guessed to shift to spades. What good does this do? After all, if West plays three rounds of spades, the defenders have no communications for a ruff.
However, the Rueful Rabbit was munching on a macaroon and lost track of the spade nine in dummy. So on the first round of spades, he tried to win the trick with his eight. Declarer scored his spade nine in dummy and confidently played a spade to his jack, knowing that the queen was surely onside. This time the Rabbit made no mistake. He won with his queen and shifted to the diamond jack. East won and played a third spade, and Rabbit gave him his ruff for down one.
ANSWER: You could try an unusual two no-trump to show hearts and clubs, but you would like a better hand for that, and your hearts are so much better than your clubs anyway. Make do with a oneheart overcall. With the suits the other way round, an overcall of two no-trump if non-vulnerable would seem reasonable. Vulnerable, I suppose I’d pass.