Things were going well for Hard Luck Louie and he thought he had a good chance to win the club’s Saturday night duplicate. Louie won the opening diamond lead in dummy and led a low spade to his king as East ducked. He crossed back to dummy with a diamond and led another spade, again ducked by East. Louie ruffed his last diamond with the nine of spades and led dummy’s last trump. East stepped up with his ace and led a club to dummy’s king. Louie needed an entry to his hand in order to draw the last trump. Overtaking the queen of clubs wouldn’t help him, so he tried to cash two hearts in order to ruff a heart back to his hand. East ruffed the king of hearts and Louie went down one.
Lucky Larry played the same contract with the same lead. He saw that the only potential problem was bad breaks in both majors so he took some precautions. He cashed dummy’s second high diamond before leading a spade to his king. He ruffed a diamond with the nine of spades and led another spade, ducked again by East, to his queen. Larry now led a club to the king, cashed the queen of clubs and the ace of hearts, and then led dummy’s last spade. East rose with his ace but there was nothing for him to do. Should he lead either minor, Larry would win in his hand and draw the last trump. If he had a heart to lead, that would have put Larry safely in the dummy to ruff a heart. Making six!
