Voluptua had had a succession of good results against the dastardly Weasel and Ferret who were determined to get their revenge. When they met next in the weekly duplicate the Weasel (South) was in 3NT, had won 7 tricks, and needed the last two to make his contract. This was the situation:
| ♠— ♥AQ ♦— ♣— | ||
| ♠— ♥32 ♦— ♣— | ♠— ♥KJ ♦— ♣— | |
| ♠— ♥T9 ♦— ♣— |
Desperate measures were called for, especially as he had already peeped at Voluptua’s hand (East) and seen that the ♥K was off-side. With a shrug he played the ♥T saying “I’d better take the heart finesse”. On hearing this Voluptua prepared to capture the ♥Q with the ♥K, and therefore played the ♥K. Only then, to her dismay, did she see that the Weasel had played the ♥A from dummy! The Weasel rubbed salt into her wound by an obvious and very lewd wink in her direction.
On the second board of the set the Weasel arrived in 4♠ and Randy began the defence by winning the first two tricks with the Ace and King of hearts.
| ♠KQT ♥65 ♦K9876 ♣A54 | ||
| ♠83 ♥AKT943 ♦Q54 ♣63 | ♠AJ ♥72 ♦JT3 ♣QJT987 | |
| ♠976543 ♥QJ8 ♦A2 ♣K2 |
“That’s a good start” thought Voluptua, and when Randy played a third heart she prepared to overruff dummy who had played the ♠Q.
Just at that point the Ferret (dummy), who had left the table, returned. He saw that there was an impending ruff and ‘accidentally on purpose’ gave Voluptua a hard nudge as he passed. Startled, she dropped the ♣7 on the table. The Weasel, winking at his partner, insisted that she played it.
However, it was now inevitable that Voluptua came to two trump tricks (whereas, had she overruffed the third heart with the ♠A she would only have scored one). The Ferret’s nudge had been costly.
Randy, realising what had happened and spotting a good opportunity, congratulated Voluptua on not overruffing. “That was a very good performance, Voluptua” he remarked “Smooth is better than ‘ruff’ as we both know”. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink seemed to sum up the incident.
Bridge Romances 
Leave a comment