DAILY BRIDGE CLUB

Cy the Cynic has two unfavorite holdings. One is a doubleton K-Q, which reminds him of marriage, an institution he distrusts. The other is a hand with four queens, which reminds him of women, whom he distrusts even more.

“Can’t live with ’em or without ’em,” Cy grumbles.

So when I watched him pick up today’s West hand in a duplicate event, he knew something bad would happen.

Indeed, North-South bid determinedly to 6NT, and Cy had to pick a lead, knowing that any card he chose would cost. After fruitless thought, Cy tried a diamond, hoping East might have the jack or dummy would have, say, K-J-x so declarer could have won a finesse anyway.

Alas, the lead not only lost a trick, but when dummy played low and East could produce only the nine, South, a good declarer, placed Cy with all the missing queens to explain his lead.

South cashed the ace of clubs and led to dummy’s jack. He took the king of diamonds, the A-K of hearts and the ace of diamonds to discard a spade from dummy, and finished the clubs. With three tricks left, dummy had the jack of hearts and K-5 of spades, and declarer had the A-J-6 of spades. Cy had to pitch a spade to keep his queen of hearts, and declarer promptly took the K-A of spades, rejecting a finesse. Making seven.

You can guess how many matchpoints EastWest scored for minus 1,470.

“Blame those women in my life,” Cy growled.