Daily Bridge Club

Law of the letter

“I know that ‘e’ is the most common letter,” I remarked to my friend the English professor in the club lounge. “Then ‘t,’‘a,’ ‘o,’ ‘i,’ ‘n’ and ‘s.’ Cryptanalysts use letter frequency to crack codes. Where does ‘m’ rank?”

“You would think ‘m’ appears often,” the prof replied learnedly, “but it actually occurs only once in a blue moon.”

Today’s South’s 1-6-1-5 pattern would occur only about six times in 1,000 deals. I won’t attempt to calculate the odds that the two singletons would both be queens, but I can comment on the bidding and play.

North couldn’t double West’s twodiamond overcall if he’d wanted to; a double would have been “negative.” When South backed in with three clubs, North might have jumped to four hearts since he had two useful honors and South had shown a shapely hand.

South went to four hearts himself, reaching a winning contract (it appeared), but after West led the king of diamonds, he cashed the ace of spades and led a low diamond. East ruffed with the ten of trumps. South overruffed with the ace and cashed the king and queen. He was unconcerned when East discarded, but when South led the queen and king of clubs next, West ruffed. Then South had to lose the 13th trick to East’s ten of clubs for down one.

A 5-1 club break would occur about 15 percent of the time — more often than a blue moon and surely more often after diamonds broke 6-1. On the second diamond, South could have played safe by discarding a club instead of overruffing East. South dealer N-S vulnerable