ACES ON BRIDGE

One will seldom go wrong to attribute extreme actions to vanity,moderate ones to habit and petty ones to fear.

— Nietzsche

Schadenfreude, enjoying the discomfort of your friends and acquaintances, is a powerful emotion. It can be entertaining to be a fly on the wall when two teams are scoring up their match, particularly if you are watching friends of yours in the middle of trying to justify their losing efforts. It is not that you want your friends to fail, but you may not mind seeing them fare less well than you.

In today’s deal, which came from a Spingold knockout match from a decade ago, I was sitting out for a set and took the opportunity to spectate at the table of some fellow Texans. After the set was over, the scoring-up started, and when it reached this deal my friends called

out 10 my tongues asking IMPs” friends minus and until what to came I biting the keep 50. could had scoring the “Lose from happened, their see riposte, was scored, comment But complete. after one about of the them set the was deal, dropped and an his offhand teammate “They asked led a heart him to what the jack had and happened. queen, and came I lost the another response. trick “And in each at your side-suit,” table?”

His teammate replied, “I also led a heart, but declarer cleverly played low from dummy at trick one. He knew he could always finesse against the jack on the next round, but as it was, I had to guess who had the heart 10 at the first trick. When I got it wrong and put up the queen, the hearts played for a discard for the slow club loser.”

ANSWER: Leading from a doubleton heart certainly doesn’t seem right: Partner is unlikely to have enough in the suit. But since a club would be a wild gamble if dummy has at least five, I’d take my shot on finding partner with a high diamond (or the jack) and kick off with the diamond 10.