Sarasota Journal – 11 Mar 1971
After the hand shown below was over. East complained bitterly about his dearth of high cards. West chimed in. “Well, I wasn’t exactly broke, but I might as well have been,” he said. And there was substance in his remark.
South dealer East-West vulnerable
North’s reply to South’s strong two-club opening showed an ace, and there was no stopping short of a slam after the show of diamond support. West’s opening lead was the king of hearts, and declarer saw immediately he was faced with the possible loss of a trick in hearts and a trick in spades, for undoubtedly West had the spade king sitting behind him.
Declarer was disappointed, of course, that the dummy did not provide any hope of a discard. Declarer took the first trick with his ace, drew trumps in three rounds, cashed his top club tricks, and ran out the rest of his trumps to see what would happen.
There was an excellent chance that West could be caught in an end-play and be thrown in with a high heart, only to have to lead away from the king of spades. West was painfully aware of what was happening to him. Forced to pare down to three cards. West’s logical choices for keeping would be the queen of hearts and the king-ten of spades.
Then a heart play by Declarer would put him on lead and force him into the uncomfortable predicament in spades. So West decided to avoid the end-play at all costs. There was a slight possibility that his partner. East, held the heart jack. On that remote contingency, West let go is heart queen and held a smaller heart. He was spared the ignominy of the end-play, but Declarer gratefully used his set-up jack of hearts for his twelfth trick and West endured ignominy anyway.
For him it was, indeed, ignominy-miney-mo.