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A Lighter Look
Spotting the difference?
55 boards played…one to go. A nice quick board to finish the day, a quick score-up. The bar beckons.
A nice solid 8 card suit . They open 2
, meaning, strangely, diamonds…..and you still remember to use the STOP card( “stops” drinking time) but your 4
bid brings a swift end to the auction.
West leads a spade and somewhat strangely, dummy puts down 8 of them, spades that is. I suppose he wanted to get to the bar too! Who said spades were the boss suit? Never got a mention. Anyway, no time to delay, as this is what you saw:
| East Deals None Vul |
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| West | North | East | South |
| 2 ♦ | 4 ♥ | ||
| All pass |
West led one, a spade that is. …the 7. No finesses, thank you. This one just had to fail. So, up with the ace and East follows low. You ruff a diamond, ruff a club, ruff a diamond and ruff your last small club…..ruff another diamond and play off lots and lots of high trumps, during which the defenders throw away all their diamonds. More hearts were played and it seemed one defender had a highish club and 
K…so, with club counting a bit confused, on the last round of trumps,9, the East threw the K and the declarer made all 13 tricks.
These were the 4 hands:
| East Deals None Vul |
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| West | North | East | South |
| 2 ♦ | 4 ♥ | ||
| All pass |
Rumour has it that West kind of remembered holding the 9 himself and was somewhat puzzled when that card was played at the end of the run of hearts. No-one, of course, had a high diamond left by that time but both defenders kind of remembered that three times, declarer had ruffed a diamond. "Director!"
No quick end to this board. The sheriff arrived and a play reconstruction made back to trick 2. The defence would win and obviously would play a trump. So, declarer would lose a diamond, a club and a spade (no memory squeeze on the run of the diamonds allowed). So, instead of making all 13, declarer went down in his game contract.
A nice story for Christchurch’s Tony Biddington to relate at the bar…when he finally got there!
And for Tony’s benefit:
Can you spot the difference?
Richard Solomon
....and please share your lighter moments with me. As you can see, you will remain anonymous but we delight in revealing the victim(s).
Richard.Solomon@nzbridge.co.nz 09 232 89494
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