Randy and Voluptua had gone to their first out of town tournament. They were staying in a motel readying themselves for battle the next day. Randy’s mind was not on the forthcoming bridge at all but was dwelling salaciously on the prospect of a couple of nights away with Voluptua.
Interpreting one of her winning smiles as an invitation to game he tried to finesse her honour. But it turned out that Voluptua was playing reverse attitude signals and a rebuffed Randy spent the night on the couch.
Despite this inauspicious start to the adventure the tournament went very well. On the last board Voluptua, South, found herself in 6NT on these hands:
| ♠A ♥AK6432 ♦AKT6 ♣43 | ||
| ♠QJT765 ♥— ♦QJ53 ♣Q82 | ♠84 ♥QJT987 ♦872 ♣75 | |
| ♠K932 ♥5 ♦94 ♣AKJT96 |
West, who led his ♠Q, was a cocky young man who repeatedly called Voluptua “Darling”. Both she and Randy had taken a hearty dislike to him and Voluptua was hoping for a good result on this hand. She won the spade lead in dummy and immediately played a club to the Jack; it lost, disappointingly, to West’s queen who continued with ♠J.
Things looked hopeless with 11 top tricks only. But Voluptua thought she had better take what winners she could so winning the ♠K she played two top hearts then 5 rounds of clubs (discarding 3 hearts and a diamond from dummy).
On the last club West had to choose between throwing his winning ♠T or unguarding diamonds. Retaining his diamond guard he discarded ♠T and so Voluptua’s ♠9 became a winner. Amazingly she had made her contract, the slimy West was vanquished and, narrowly, they had won the tournament.
After celebratory drinks they headed back to the motel. As they entered the room Randy complimented Voluptua once more on her magnificent play on the last board. Voluptua was dimly aware of what had happened. “That was a squeeze, Randy” she announced. “I’m just getting the hang of them, and if you play your cards right tonight I’ll show you what I mean”.
The promise of delights to come hung in the air and Randy was determined not to spoil Voluptua’s mood. Feeling that it would not hurt to dwell on another of their good boards he brought up the one on which Voluptua had held a rock-crusher:
| ♠QJT852 ♥J2 ♦85 ♣75 | ||
| ♠7 ♥AK97 ♦AK97 ♣AKQ4 | ♠AK93 ♥Q43 ♦Q64 ♣T82 | |
| ♠6 ♥T865 ♦JT32 ♣J963 |
As West she became declarer in 7NT and North (who had pre-empted in spades) led ♠Q. Voluptua wrinkled her nose; she could only count 11 tricks. With North pre-empting in spades it seemed that the suits might not be breaking well.
Dimly recalling that such moments were overcome by experts with a squeeze she tried to remember what Gordon had told her. His voice came back to her: “You have to rectify the count first before the squeeze will operate and that means usually losing an early trick”.
Here it seemed that to lose a trick would seriously jeopardise her contract so she played to win as many tricks as possible. That meant winning the first trick after which she may as well play another winning spade.
On this trick South paused before discarding a club and Voluptua felt a moment of triumph: he was being squeezed! The triumph was short lived however because she herself was now being squeezed. Better not throw a club because South may have just given up his guard in clubs. But which red suit to discard? At random she decided to throw a small diamond.
Then she cashed her clubs and diamonds. After that she tackled hearts playing first the ♥A and then the ♥Q. In a flash that showed she really was improving she saw North discard ♥J.
But did North have another heart (so play for the drop) or not (so finesse against South). Thinking a bit longer she realised that she knew North had begun with 7 spades and she had watched him play 6 cards of other suits: so he had no more hearts! She therefore knew what to do and wrapped up 13 tricks.
“Count me among your greatest admirers” said Randy, realising that this was the first occasion that either of them had counted out a hand. Voluptua smiled at him and Randy realised his luck was in tonight.
Bridge Romances 
Leave a comment