Louie’s ice cream deal

Unlucky Louie and his wife, Esther, have raised a big family. They still have kids at home. Louie says that the shortest known interval of time is the “Sundae Second” — between the moment when your child says he’s too full to finish his dinner and when he asks for ice cream.

When I watched today’s deal in my club’s penny game, Louie was South and was allowed to buy the contract at three diamonds. (As it happened, East-West could have won nine tricks at spades. Since East had a fourth spade, he might have competed further despite his paucity of high cards.)

West led the king of spades: three, nine from East (to suggest an even number of spades), queen. West then shifted to the ten of clubs. Grateful for the free finesse, Louie promptly put up dummy’s queen ... and the contract left for Baskin-Robbins.

East’s king covered, and Louie took the ace, drew trumps, led a club to dummy’s jack and exited with a third club. East was able to win with the eight and lead the ten of hearts, and the defense took three hearts for down one.

Louie lost his contract in a banana-split second — when he covered West’s ten of clubs. He succeeds if he lets the ten win. Suppose West leads another club and dummy’s queen wins. Louie can ruff a spade, draw trumps with the king and queen, cash the ace of clubs, lead a trump to dummy and return the jack of spades, discarding a heart as a loser-on-loser play.

When West wins, he is end-played. He must return a spade, conceding a ruff-sluff, or lead a heart, letting Louie’s king score.