The easy dollar

I traveled to Raleigh NC this past weekend for my live fantasy football draft. Most of them are bridge players, so after the draft, we pulled out the bidding boxes -- time to play some bridge. There were 8 of who stayed to play, so we drew cards for teams, then drew for partners. A team game!

We played eight boards, then redrew and played eight more. The process was repeated a third time, and we quit after 24 boards. In the old days, we would have played until 3 a.m., but we're older now.

The second round, declarer was in 6NT on this layout (low cards approximate):

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

Declarer won the spade lead in dummy. He could see that if the club finesse worked, he would have 12 tricks. If it failed, he might have some rare squeeze, or he could finesse in hearts. Both hooks were off, down one.

Here are all four hands:

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

In the other room, the contract was the same, but declarer, Randy, was made of sterner stuff. He won the spade, and finessed the heart first. The hook lost, but when hearts divided 3-3, he had 12 tricks without finessing in clubs. We were playing for 10 cents an IMP, so this was worth a little more than $1 to me!