Daily Bridge Club
Sit! Stay! Heel!
“I heard you bought a dog,” I remarked to Unlucky Louie in the club lounge.
“He’s a Labrador retriever,” Louie told me proudly, “and he’s living up to his name. Yesterday I threw a stick a mile, and he brought it back.”
“That’s what I would call a farfetched story,” Cy the Cynic observed blandly.
Later, in his penny game, Louie was today’s West. South’s opening bid was on the lightish side; North’s bash into slam was quite reasonable. Louie led the queen of diamonds, and declarer won with the king and led a trump to dummy’s king and a low trump back to his ten. Louie took his ace and led a second diamond.
South won and led a heart to dummy’s ace, executing a “Vienna Coup.” He then ran his trumps, pitching hearts from dummy. At the end, East couldn’t keep four clubs plus his king of hearts. He discarded the king, hoping West had the queen, but South produced that card and claimed the slam.
“Thanks, partner,” East grumbled. “Shift to a heart when you take the ace of trumps.”
“What difference does that make?” Louie asked indignantly. “He just takes the ace, and the squeeze still works.”
I would call the winning defense far-fetched but certainly not impossible. Louie must refuse the second trump as well as the first. If declarer leads a third trump — and as the cards lie, he has no better play — Louie can take the ace and lead a diamond. South can take the ace of hearts but is stuck in dummy. He then has no way back to his hand to run the trumps and bring off the squeeze against East. South dealer N-S vulnerable