Frank Morgan

At the Shore Bridge Club with Jane Havighurst today, I risked one overtrick at 3N to gain a second. I won the Club lead on the board, tested the Diamonds with the Ace, and took the Spade finesse. Now I could count 10 tricks: 2 Spades, H Ace, 5 Dimaonds, and 2 Clubs. To squeeze out an eleventh required rectifying the count, so I ducked a Heart. Had West continued with Spades or Hearts, I would not have been able to set up another Club trick, but as I expected, he continued Clubs. Now at the end by the time I have SA8 H4 in hand and HA7 S2 on the board, East can no longer be guarding both Hearts and Spades. 3N+2 was worth 96.4%, tying one other pair whose opponents early misdiscarded.

A miscount of keycards on my part led to this terrible Heart slam, which very luckily made. I won the Heart lead in hand, Club finesse, Diamond to hand, Club finesse, then discarding my Spade K as Clubs broke 3-3 with the K onside. When I now played a small H, North took his Q and led his Spade Ace, setting up dummy’s QJ. I ruffed in hand, discarded the S9 on my remaining high Diamond, and led my remaining Heart to dummy’s K, finding trump also breaking 3-3. Dummy was good.

(Virtual NYC August 12, 2020 with Jim Berry.)

Two interesting Spade slams yesterday. In the first with Bob Cole, on the common Club lead, we can trump three Clubs in dummy and get a third entry to hand by finessing the SJ (or overtaking the SK with the SA; both work with J doubleton onside). The Diamond split provides an overtrick.

The second, with Mike Kohler, was the first time I ever redoubled a slam. This time there are plenty of entries to ruff three Hearts in West. No  one  else  was  even  in  slam.