“Don’t listen to her,” the Queen of Diamonds told Alice at the Mad Hatter’s. “My cousin is, as we say, a few cards short of a full deck.”

The Queen of Hearts had boasted that she was the most potent card in Wonderland, and no king or ace dared capture her; the Queen of Diamonds insisted that losing a trick could be better than winning one.

When the Hatter played at 3NT, Alice led a spade as West. The Hatter held up his ace and won the third round. At Trick Four he led a diamond. Alice was about to play ‘second hand low’ when she felt the Queen of Diamonds’ intense gaze. So Alice put up her queen.

The Hatter was helpless. If he ducked to keep a link with dummy, Alice would cash her good spades for down one. When instead he took the ace, dummy’s long diamonds were dead; the result was down two.

“See?” said the Queen of Diamonds. “If you play low on the first diamond, declarer plays dummy’s ten and wins four diamonds and nine tricks in all.”

And so it was.

Daily question >> You hold: ?A 6 5 ? A K 10 3 ? 4 2 ? A K 6 5. You open one club, your partner responds one spade and the player at your right overcalls two diamonds. What do you say?

Answer>> Some partnerships use “support doubles” in this situation; a double would show three cards in spades (and a bid of two spades would show four-card support). That treatment is controversial and doesn’t appeal to me. Anyway, a bid of two hearts here would be fine.

South dealer

N-S Vulnerable

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