Ed makes winning match

My club has started to offer a teamof-four option to the penny Chicago game. Eight players draw cards: The four highest and four lowest cards make up the teams. They can decide on what the partnerships will be. They play an eight-deal match for 50 cents an IMP, plus $10 to each of the winners.

“I played in one of those matches,” Cy the Cynic told me in the lounge, “and I drew Rose, Millard and Ed. We decided Rose and I would play together, and Ed would try to cope with Millard.”

Ed is my club’s best player. Rose is competent. Millard Pringle doesn’t have a clue; he often gets lost in the maze of bridge “rules.”

“How did you come out?” I asked. “We won by five IMPS,” Cy said, “thanks to this deal.”

Cy told me that Ed had opened 1NT as South, and when West overcalled in spades, Millard raised to 3NT!

“The man’s a fruitcake,” the Cynic said. “I guess he wanted Ed to be declarer no matter what. Maybe Millard would have shown his diamonds if he’d had 00-8-5 distribution.

“Against 3NT, West led the king of spades to dummy’s ace.”

“If Ed leads a diamond to the ace next, he goes down,” I observed. “He can’t get back to dummy to finesse with the ten and get back again to run the diamonds. If he concedes a diamond to East’s queen, a shift to the jack of hearts is fatal.”

“At Trick Two,” Cy said, “Ed led a diamond to the 10! He was safe for nine tricks even if West won. As it was, Ed made an overtrick. At the other table, North-south bid to six diamonds – an unlucky contract – and went down. We gained 12 IMPS, and maybe we deserved a few of them.” South dealer

N-S vulnerable