And So Many Others

N/S Vul
IMPs
Dealer: West
Lead: 8

	borgar J 4 3 7 4 A 2 A K 10 9 6 3
maneesh K Q 7 6 5 10 6 3 2 J 6 4 5		Maestro A 8 A K 8 K Q 9 8 Q J 7 4
	bdrindal 10 9 2 Q J 9 5 10 7 5 3 8 2

West Pass 1 Pass

North 1 2 Pass

East Dbl 3NT

South Pass Pass

 

Gee, sitting East, winds up in an excellent 3NT contract after a reasonable auction. I would bid 2NT over 2C (and raise to game with the West hand), but South rates to be broke if he can’t find a bid over the takeout double of 1C, and the jump to game, with a super 19 and a probable double stopper in clubs, is defensible.

South leads the C8, of course, ducked around to Gee’s jack. Even if spades break there are only eight top tricks: at some point declarer will have to tackle diamonds, and there’s no time like the present.

But declarer’s chances are good. The auction and lead virtually mark clubs as 6-2 or 7-1, and North with both club honors. When North wins the DA a club continuation will give declarer his ninth trick. On any other lead declarer has plenty of time to test diamonds (which fails) and spades (which succeeds): ten tricks.

Gee takes a different approach. He plays off three top spades, an inferior but still successful line. Well, it would have succeeded, had Gee not discarded a club on the third spade, for a rarely seen self-pseudo-squeeze. Spades break, and Gee figures, logically enough, that he may as well throw bad clubs after good, so he sluffs his remaining clubs on the fourth and fifth rounds of spades, to make the layout as clear to the defenders as possible.

Gee now plays off the two top honors in hearts, alertly seizing the last extra chance that the QJ will drop doubleton. No luck.

Alexander Ananin, who was kind enough to send me this hand, remarks elegiacally: “By now we all know why Marilyn Monroe committed suicide. (Her and so many others.) Only today, however, can we see how.”