Bridge

Everyone has good days and bad days; no one more than me. I like to think my A game is pretty good but my B game is such a car crash that sometimes I feel like giving up. Great players also have A and B days, the difference being smaller the better the player. Towards the end of last year I was thrilled with my game: defences seemed to go swimmingly, ditto bidding and even my declarer play was unusually successful. Sadly it went crashing down to B with no explanation.

Today’s hand came up towards the end of my A streak.

North’s 2♣️ was Landy showing both majors. I was West and started with the ♦️K. South won and ran his singleton Jack of Hearts. When it lost, he looked so disappointed I nearly apologised. My partner returned a Diamond to me and I played the K♣️, won in the dummy. It all seemed rather mundane; if declarer could get back to hand a couple of times, surely all I would score was the Ace of trumps? Just making?

Declarer trumped a Heart to get back to hand, and played a Spade up, ducked. Then he took another Heart ruff and played a second Spade up. I won the Ace – why not? – and was ready to cash my club and concede the rest, when I spotted that if I could put partner in with a Club, he could promote my ♠️J with a fourth Heart. It was worth trying and it worked a treat. Good by us or poor by declarer? As so often, a bit of both. He could easily just duck my King of Clubs, and we would have had no communication.