Ellensburg Daily Record – 7 Ene 1956
Counting a hand as it develops will often enable you to avoid a losing finesse and to follow another line of play which is absolutely certain of success.
North dealer. Neither side vulnerable
In today’s deal Mr. Champion led the deuce of spades, the correct lead from his holding in his partner’s bid suit. Mr. Abel won with the ace, returned the ten and Mr. Dale ducked.
Mr. Champion over-took with the jack to avoid blocking the suit and led his last spade. Mr. Dale won with the king of spades and checked on his prospects. They didn’t look too good. Even if he could bring in four club tricks by some good fortune, there appeared to be no way to avoid taking the heart finesse. Of course both minor suit queens might fall doubleton but that was asking a lot. And the heart finesse didn’t look too healthy. Since Mr. Abel was the one who had put in an overcall.
Sudden Change
The campaign had to be started somewhere so Mr. Dale laid down the king of clubs. Here the picture changed suddenly when Mr. Champion followed suit with the queen. Mr. Dale did a little quick counting. Mr. Abel had started with five spades and four clubs and therefore could have only four red cards.
Perhaps these included the queen doubleton in diamonds. Trying for this possibility Mr. Dale cashed the ace and king of diamonds. On the second diamond Mr. Abel discarded the trey of hearts. But the answer was there anyway.
Mr. Dale cashed dummy’s jack of clubs, led a small club and finessed the nine. He cashed the ace of clubs and then calmly led his last spade. Mr. Abel won and cashed another spade. But then he had nothing left but two hearts and was forced to lead into dummy’s ace-queen to give Mr. Dale a total of nine tricks.