Boca Raton News – 11 Abr 1978
“I’m sick to death of abstractions.” — Fred Dooley.
Ira Martin has written a completely different sort of bridge book. Instead of emphasizing the bidding and play of numerous, hands, Martin has compiled a potpurri of bridge information, including anecdotes, poems, statistics, short essays, famous bridge quotes, bridge maxims, etc. In fact, the book, “The Ins and Outs and Wins of Contract Bridge”, includes only one bridge hand — General “Ike” Eisenhower’s favorite bridge hand. The hand was played after World War II in a mountain resort in the Alps.
Eisenhower (South) opened the bidding six diamonds which General Aired Gruenther ( West ) was quick to double. North, General Mark Clark bid seven diamonds on the theory, “if Ike thinks he can make six without the ace of trumps, then surely my ace of trumps will land the grand slam”
East, General Moses, doubled “on the bidding,” plus his ace of hearts but North wasn’t satisfied. He redoubled to emphasize his confidence and he was right — to the tune of 1,610 points, plus the arbitrary value of a 300-point non-vulnerable game.
Lead:Â 
A
The play was not without interest. After ruffing the ace of clubs, if Ike had played even one high trump, he would have gone down. With one trump played, there would be no way to establish the spades without building a trump trick for West and we would have had no story. After ruffing the ace of clubs. Ike cashed two high spades and led a low one to trap West’s’ trumps. West discarded and dummy ruffed with the six.
The ace of trumps was then cashed and a heart was ruffed to enter the South hand to draw the remaining trumps. After that, there was nothing left to do but claim the slam and work at computing the total score.
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