The risky play was unnecessary

Some writers rely heavily on their editors. Others feel that the editor, to justify his position, will unnecessarily alter the writer’s carefully constructed prose. As H.G. Wells said, “No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else’s draft.”

When South tallied up after today’s deal had been completed, he found that he had gone down. If only he had counted the nouns with an adverb, he would have avoided suffering another noun.

South’s rebid of two no-trump showed 18 or 19 points. This was an accurate assessment of the power of his hand, Edgar Kaplan’s 4Cs method rating that hand at 18.9 points.

The defenders played spades, declarer ducking his ace until the third round.

To play this club holding for no losers, South knew that it was better to take an immediate finesse than to cash the ace first and then finesse. Therefore, South played a heart to the ace and finessed the club jack. However, West won with the queen and cashed two spade winners: down one.

South had four top tricks outside clubs. So he needed only five club tricks, not six. South should have cashed the club ace and king, not taken a finesse at all. Here the queen drops, and declarer makes an overtrick. If the queen hadn’t appeared, South would have led a third club, hoping East had the queen.

— FEBRUARY 23, 2023