Waste yes, want not

Remember when you were a kid, and your parents nagged you not to waste things? We have been taught that all our lives. Because it's ingrained, sometimes it's hard to see when that advice should be ignored.

This was one of the deals from online bridge last night (hands rotated):

                    ♠ Q J 3
                    ♥ 6 5
                    ♦ A 10 6 3
                    ♣ K J 8 4
♠ K 8 7                               ♠ 10 9
♥ 4                                   ♥ K Q 7 3
♦ Q J 9 5 2                           ♦ 8 7 4
♣ 10 76 2                             ♣ A 9 5 3
                    ♠ A 6 5 4 2
                    ♥ A J 10 9 8 2
                    ♦ K
                    ♣ Q

       West   North   East   South
              Pass    Pass   1♥
       Pass   2♣     Pass   4♥
       All Pass

My partner and I were East-West on defense. I have no idea why South bid 4♥. Maybe 2♣ bid was supposed to be a form of Drury. In any event, South played in a decent contract.

West led the ♦Q. Declarer played low and won with his king and the contract could no longer be made. He tried the ♣Q which I won with the ace to shift to the ♠10. South ducked, West won the ♠K and returned a spade.

Declarer advanced the ♥5 from dummy, I ducked and he played the jack. This won the trick, but he had no way back to dummy to repeat the heart finesse. Declarer played the ♥A and another, and I won two heart tricks for down one.

At trick one, declarer needs to win the ♦A in dummy. Even though his king falls under the ace, he is in dummy to lead a heart. When his ♥J wins (splitting my honors does no good), he can lead a spade toward the ♠Q J 3 to force a second entry to repeat the heart finesse. Playing this way, he loses one spade, one heart and one club to make his contract.

Going set one was minus 6.32 IMPs, whereas making 4♥ would have scored plus 3.97 IMPs, a difference of a little more than 10 IMPs.

Out of the 75 tables who played this board, most of them got to game North-South, but a few did not. There are always some goofy results, I'm just sayin'. To see all the goofy and Mickey Mouse results, click here.