SUNDAY PREMIER CROSSWORD
To preempt or not?
SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 2024
ACROSS
1 Relatives of pistachios 8 Mail-related
14 Baio and Turow
20 Wife of Nero 21 Fingers-in-ears syllables
22 Headwear for
Mr. Peanut
23 Golden State hoopster who lives for Saturdays and Sundays? 25 Existence
26 Days of yore, archaically
27 Ruling group 28 Schlepped through the entrance 30 Ballesteros of golf 33 Groom, e.g. 35 Exemplary Houston hoopster?
38 San Antonio hoopster scaling a mountain? 42 Suffix with lion
43 Guy in the fam
44 High peak
45 Heavenly
46 Health club
48 Gyro bread
49 Semi fuel
51 Cowardly Denver hoopster?
55 “Mom” actress Jaime 58 Start eating
59 Org. against pollution 60 Redding of R&B 61 Event for stunt pilots 64 __ -Z (total)
65 Foot part
68 Brooklyn hoopster using a rod and reel? 71 Phoenix hoopster preparing a typeface for printing?
74 Frau’s “Oh!”
75 Girl in the fam
76 Name originally proposed for Utah
78 Gas guzzler 79 Reindeer kin
80 Notion, to Fifi 81 Damsels
84 Los Angeles hoopster originally from New England?
90 Train in the pool
92 All excited
93 Mtn. stat
94 Tested for fit
97 “__ culpa!” 98 “Stillmatic” rapper 99 Footed vase
101 Sacramento hoopster holding power?
103 Eco-conscious Charlotte hoopster?
107 Livy’s lang.
108 Words in an analogy 109 Some nobles’ domains 110 Jamaican pop genre 112 Baby wolf
114 Justification
116 Chicago hoopster devoid of spontaneity and emotion?
122 Sock with diamond patterns
123 “Seinfeld” character 124 Shrunken Asian lake 125 Some vowel sounds 126 Phrase structure
127 Lower than
DOWN
1 Mooing beast
2 High card
3 Fr. holy woman 4 Olajuwon of the NBA 5 Daredevil Knievel 6 Power sources with spinning sails
7 Tearful
8 Strategize
9 Rowers’ tools
10 35mm camera inits. 11 Alteration pro
12 Not silently
13 Huge
14 Directs
15 Buyable apartments 16 Vision-related 17 Have high aspirations 18 Bit of ink art 19 Pigpen
24 Flying needs 29 Collect bit by bit 30 Cousin of a jack mackerel
31 Oval-shaped 32 Spiteful
34 Even one
35 Capital of Bavaria 36 One-named Deco master
37 Exactly
39 Pollen eaters
40 “Get ’em, Spot!” 41 Syllable after “oom” 46 Broiling bar
47 Church seat
48 Club swingers’ gp. 50 Meeting period, informally
52 Picked
Can’t wait for your answers? Find
all the puzzle answers at 53 __ pot (sinus-cleaning product)
54 “Once __ a time ...” 56 Dillydallies
57 Dark half of a Chinese circle
60 Birds __ feather 62 News aggregation website
63 Precipitous
64 “__ girl!”
65 Giant waves
66 Paid more than 67 Musician Brian 69 Capri, e.g.
70 Adidas rival
72 Pro __
73 Celtic speaker
77 Piece for seven 79 Heart test, for short 80 Ailing
82 Apathetic response 83 Ding- __
84 Light half of a Chinese circle
85 Lab gelatin
DIRECTIONS: Make a 2- to 7-letter word from the letters in each row. Add points of each word, using scoring directions at right. Finally, 7-letter words get 50-point bonus. “Blanks” used as any letter have no point value. All the words are in the Official SCRABBLE Players Dictionary, 5th Edition.
LAST SUNDAY’S ANSWER 86 Horse feed holders 87 Body of rules 88 Verdi’s “__ tu”
89 Fix illegally 91 Pudding starch 95 China’s Zhou
96 Day, in Peru
99 Open, as a new rug 100 Some French wines 101 Make a new digital image of
102 Dry dog food
104 Class that’s a cinch 105 “Blue” singer LeAnn 106 Hockey great Cam 110 Capital of Yemen 111 Lego alternative
113 __ Bator
114 Jogged, e.g.
115 History unit
117 Smack
118 Taxi
119 D.C.’s nation
120 Tennis call
121 “__ -di-dah!”
Today’s South wouldn’t (I hope) have opened four spades as dealer – with a side ace and second-round heart control. North would pass with 75, A964, 876, AQ107 when slam would depend only on winning one of two finesses.
South should also avoid bidding four spades if he were in second seat, or if East opened the bidding. North could still have enough strength to make slam a favorite, and since South owns the ranking suit, he has less urgency to preempt. To open or overcall one spade and await developments would be a reasonable course.
But when West opened and East responded, South discounted the chances for slam and leaped to four spades. He expected a chance for 10 tricks and might make it hard for East-West to locate a paying sacrifice.
West led the king of diamonds, and South won and saw that he might need to ruff his third club in dummy. He led a club and, for an extra chance, played dummy’s nine. East took the 10 and led a trump, and South put up the ace. When West followed low, South led another club. West won, cashed his king of trumps and led a club to East’s king. Down one.
“At least I didn’t try a heart finesse,” declarer said. “Then I would go down two.”
South makes his game with elegant play. He leads a heart to dummy’s ace at Trick Two and returns the nine of clubs. East can’t gain by putting up his king, so South’s jack loses to West’s ace. If West leads another heart, South ruffs and leads a second club to the queen and king. He wins East’s trump shift and ruffs his last club in dummy to assure the contract.
West dealer
Both sides vulnerable