Off With My Head

E/W Vul
IMPs
Dealer: East
Lead: A

	taryk K Q 7 6 3 — K 9 8 3 K 10 8 6
gv_roma 10 9 8 4 Q 3 2 Q J 2 Q 9 4		lulu A J 5 2 A K J 9 7 5 J 7 5
	Maestro — 10 8 6 5 4 A 10 7 6 4 A 3 2

West 2 Pass

North Dbl

East 1 Pass

South Pass Pass

 

I’m getting kind of tired of sticks & wheels, aren’t you? Let’s try some defense today for variety.

Gee, sitting South, passes over 1H, and hears lefty raise to 2H and his partner double. This is a wet dream of an auction. Matching major-suit voids, as East-West are marked for the missing eight hearts, and a virtually guaranteed nine-card diamond fit. Five diamonds must be cold. Six diamonds is likely to have an excellent play; and even a diamond grand is possible if North holds something like Axxx — KQxx KQxxx.

A 3H cue bid seems indicated; or if not that, then something forcing, anything forcing. Gee passes for penalty. That last sentence deserves a paragraph to itself.

Gee passes for penalty.

There is only one possible way to follow a bid like that, and Gee finds it. He leads the CA, his partner signals with C8, and Gee plays a second round to North’s CK, declarer dropping CJ. North returns the SK, covered with SA and ruffed by Gee.

At this point the hand is almost an open book. Declarer must have four spades; with 5-5 in the majors and a minimum she would have opened 1S. Therefore she is either 4-5-2-2 or 4-5-1-3. The only missing honors are the SJ and the DK. If North doubled with eight HCP — rather unlikely, even at favorable and with perfect distribution — then you aren’t beating the contract anyway; declarer will get time to sluff two spade losers (in this scenario North holds SJ) on the spare minor suit winners. So you underlead the DA for your second spade ruff, right? Nah. You play the DA and another. Declarer ruffs the second diamond, pulls trump and claims.

Whose fault is this catastrophe? Gee explains his failure to underlead the DA as follows: “[It is] the play I would normally do, but I dare not anymore because if it does not work, aaron will kill me again, like he does each time I play an uncommon play and it does not work.”

You know those dictators-in-exile who are always getting sentenced in absentia by some toothless international court while they’re tanning on their hacienda in Uruguay? Today I feel a little like that. Could you rub on a little more sunscreen, sweetheart? You missed a spot.