Hard Luck Louie had avoided the club’s Saturday night duplicate for the last two weeks, hoping to change his luck. He returned to the game tonight, full of hope.
Louie cleverly ducked the first two heart leads from West, winning the third heart as East discarded a spade and dummy a club. Louie led a club to dummy’s queen, losing to East’s ace. East shifted to a spade and Louie paused for thought. He had to decide whether to take the spade finesse or rise with the ace of spades and rely on diamonds splitting 3-3. Louie had done some reading the last two weeks, and he knew that a 3-3 split was only 36%. He chose the spade finesse, which he knew to be 50 percent. When the finesse lost, Louie ended up down two—four hearts, one spade and one club. “Sorry partner,” said Louie, “but I made the right play.”
Lucky Larry also won the third round of hearts. He reasoned that East had to hold the ace of clubs or there was no chance. He postponed playing on clubs to gather more information. Larry immediately tested the diamonds. When they split 3-3, he had his ninth trick right there. He knocked out the ace of clubs and saw no need to take the spade finesse, settling for nine tricks and his contract.
