Column 7B89 (2-16-86) by Richard Pavlicek

The Lowly Deuce

Helen Shanbrom of Tamarac managed this feat with the club suit on today’s deal — not legitimately of course, but with a little help from her opponents. North’s one-diamond opening was a bit strange (one spade is recommended… though I then would have had no story) and Shanbrom, South, responded one spade. North offered a jump raise and South continued to game.

4 by South

Both Vul	K 9 8 5 4 A 10 A K 10 7 6 4
2 Q 9 8 7 4 8 3 K Q 10 9 8		Q 10 6 K J 6 5 2 A J 7 6 5
Lead: K	A J 7 3 3 2 Q J 9 5 4 3 2

West Pass All Pass

North 1 3

East Pass Pass

South 1 4

West led the club king, South contributing the three (aesthetically correct); then West shifted to a heart, taken by dummy’s ace. Declarer’s first hurdle was the trump suit. The normal play with nine trumps is to cash the ace and king; but with a singleton club in dummy (and knowing that one opponent held a singleton or void in diamonds), declarer elected to cash the king and finesse the jack. This reasoning has no mathematical basis; however, it is amazing how often it holds true with hand-dealt cards. In any event it worked, so who can argue?

Declarer continued by leading all of dummy’s trumps (throwing a heart) and then five rounds of diamonds, ending in the South hand. This reduced everyone to one card. East and West both reasoned that South’s last card would be a heart since a club could have been ruffed in dummy earlier. (Of course this was faulty reasoning because dummy held the longer trumps and a ruff therein would not have helped declarer.)

With all the enemy clubs discarded, South won the last trick with the deuce and earned an absolute top score.