“Anyone can be a good declarer“. Gordon was pontificating as Frieda, Randy, and Voluptua listened respectfully. “Take the following hand where I was North in 4♥; nothing to it. The lead was ♠J won by West who returned a spade; I won, knocked out the king of trumps, and had no trouble taking 10 tricks”.
| ♠KQ87 ♥A8753 ♦KQ63 ♣— | ||
| ♠A965 ♥2 ♦JT974 ♣754 | ♠J4 ♥K64 ♦A85 ♣98632 | |
| ♠T32 ♥QJT9 ♦2 ♣AKQJT9 |
The bidding had been simple:
| West | North | East | South |
| 1♥ | Pass | 2♣ | |
| Pass | 3♦ | Pass | 3♥ |
| Pass | 4♥ | Pass | Pass |
| Pass |
Not wishing to be too rude of Gordon’s analysis, Randy coughed in embarrassment. “Actually, Gordon, Voluptua and I were sitting East-West at another table and defeated the contract”.
Gordon glared in surprise. “Never” he muttered “lay-down contract”. Voluptua took up the tale. “Randy led ♠J and I had to decide whether he was leading a singleton or doubleton. If it had been a singleton, declarer would have had 5 spades and that didn’t make sense on the bidding, so it had to be a doubleton. So I prayed that Randy had a trump trick, and the Ace of diamonds; and then I ducked the first trick. Later, Randy scored his ♥K and led another spade to my Ace. I returned a spade for him to ruff, and with the ace of diamonds we took 4 tricks”.
“By Jove” exclaimed Gordon, “that was smart thinking young lady”. He fell into a reverie trying to redeem his analytical reputation. An hour later he gave a loud “Harrumph” and said “I see you could tell South’s shape on trick 1. South had bid hearts before diamonds, and had 4 spades; so must be 4-5-4-0. Playing match-point pairs there is a case for winning the first spade because if Randy did not have a trump trick then South would make an important overtrick. But at teams scoring your defence was perfect”. There was a respectful silence.
Bridge Romances 
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