The Courier – 31 Mar 1985
North South Vulnerable, West dealer
It just isn´t fair wailed the Four of Spades, All my life I have wanted to win a trick through sheer power, and now, when I finally accomplish that no one wants to speak to me. I am condemn to purgatory though no fault of my own!»
The hand that caused this anguish for the Four of Spades occurred in the trials to select his na-tional team. We have no explanation for North’s rather strange-looking takeout double. As to South’s four spades. We know of many who would considered it a gross underbid. Quite sure he was used to his partner’s eccentricities.
«Against our spade game West led the ace of diamonds and East followed with the jack, a suit preference signal for hearts. Declarer ruffed with the eight and had he simply drawn two rounds of trumps and then led the king of clubs, West would have been end played and the game would have rolled home.
Unfortuntately for me, South had a larcenous streak in him, and the lure of those two high diamonds was more than he could resist. He tried to sneak an entry to the table by leading a low club from the king. West was not born yesterday. He hopped up with the ace of clubs, cashed the king of hearts and got off lead with a club to declarer’s king. The kibitzers thought the defense was finished. Declarer would throw West in with the third trump, and West would have to put declarer on the table, thereby allowing him to get three heart discards for his contract.
«They reckoned without West. On the ace-king of trumps he unblocked the queen-jack. Now when declarer tried to end play him by leading me, West could under play the three. South did not lose a trump trick, but he was still saddled with the lead. There was no way that he could avoid losing two heart tricks to go down one.
I had been preparing myself for being the center of attention. Instead I found everyone laughing at me even though I had won the trick. There´s.. no justice’ . . .