Sarasota Herald-Tribune – 10 May 1964 by Robert Powell
Mr. Pigeon found himself quite suddenly in a game contract on board 11 at the Tuesday night duplicate, and when he saw the dummy, he was certain that the hand would play like a “pianola”. But the point that Mr. Pigeon overlooked is that pianolas sometimes hit a sour note —especially, when the elderly Mrs. Little, sitting there so jauntily on the edge of her chair, is helping in call the tune.
Neither side vulnerable South dealer
Opening Lead—
K
South opened the bidding with 1
, West passed, Mr. Pigeon bid 1
, and Mrs. Little playing the intermediate single jump overcall, showed her strong six – card diamond suit by jumping the bidding to 3. South, deciding to leave the next action up to his partner, passed. So did West. Mr. Pigeon, fortified by his six-card heart suit, his 11 high card points, plus his club singleton, opposite his partner’s opening hid, decided to take further action. At first, he considered going directly to game but changed his mind and bid just 3. Mrs. Little, not wishing to shove the seemingly reluctant opponents into a possibly makeable game, passed—but South, certain that Mr. Pigeon wouldn’t rebid his hearts unless he held at least six of them considered his ace-three sufficient support to put Mr. Pigeon in game and proceeded to do so. All passed and, in due course, Mrs. Little made the opening lead of the king of diamonds.
Mr. Pigeon called the 4 from dummy and took in his hand with the ace. He then led the 9 and successfully finessed dummy’s jack. He next called the A, and on it he pitched the 2 from his hand. “Now it’s time for the greatly revered loser-on-a- loser play,” he chuckled softly to himself and, calling for the Q, pitched the 3 on the trick which was taken by Mrs. Little with her king.
Mrs Little, in a belated effort to cut dummy’s ruffing power, returned the Q, taken by the ace in dummy. Mr. Pigeon next called the 5, ruffed by West with the 6, overruffed by Mr. Pigeon with the 7 and Mrs. Little pitched the 
9 on the trick—a fact duly noted by Mr. Pigeon, who thought with another chuckle, “Well, well, what do you know? The little lady is signaling to her partner that she wants a spade lead. Hmmm! Probably sitting there with the K-x-x- or the K-J-x and wants to cash her king. So, after I pull one more round of trump. ‘ I’ll play a low spade to dummy and let her cash her king. Then I’ll ruff her diamond return, concede a trump trick and cash my good ace-queen of spades to make my contract for a good board.”
In accordance with this strategy, Mr. Pigeon laid down the K, Mrs. Little played the 10 with dummy and West showing out. Mr. Pigeon followed his plan by playing the 2, but Mrs. Little, the old spoil-sport, showed out of spades by the playing of the 5; Mr. Pigeon called the Q from dummy, West took with his king, played the 7 and Mr. Pigeon, facing his “moment of truth,” knew that he was a dead duck and that his contract certainly was going down one trick. Altogether, he lost one club, one trump and two spades—minus 50 for Mr. Pigeon and a very frigid Imam on the board.
“Sorry, Partner.” Mr. Pigeon said meekly. “Guess we were too ambitious.” Then he added. “Though if East had held the spade king, I would have made it.” His partner quite graciously failed to point out that regardless of the location of the spade king, Mr. Pigeon should’ve made his contract exactly the same as Mr. Syker did just 20 minutes later and at the very next table. Mr. Syker’s method of play will be chronicled in this column next Sunday.
In the meantime, why not see if you can figure out the winning line of play by laying out the cards and working it out? Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?