Hard Luck Louie was once again trying to win the club’s Saturday night duplicate.
West found the excellent opening lead of a trump. It was pointless for Louie to try for a club ruff in dummy, as the defense would be able to prevent that with repeated trump leads. There would be no overtrick, but Louie expected to make his contract with five spade tricks and five diamond tricks.
Louie won the opening trump lead with his 10 and drew trumps in three rounds. He cashed the queen of diamonds and led a diamond to dummy’s ace. Louie cashed the king of diamonds and realized that the diamond suit was hopelessly blocked. The best he could do was to cash his eight of diamonds and the opponents eventually took four tricks for down one. “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all,” said Louie.
Lucky Larry declared the same contract with the same lead, but he saw the potential diamond problem right away. The diamond suit would be blocked unless the suit split 2-2. Larry won the spade lead in hand and led a spade to dummy’s queen. He led the jack of hearts from dummy and discarded the six of diamonds from his hand. He ruffed the heart continuation by West, drew the last trump, and smoothly ran off five diamond tricks for his contract. Well played!
