Janet de Botton

Bridge | 5 September 2013

issue 07 September 2013

Holiday over – and I hopped on the plane home dribbling with excitement. I was going straight to Young Chelsea to play the Friday night IMPs duplicate with my Polish friend, whose unpronounceable name has metamorphosed into Saucepan.

It was heaven to be back, even though we did not exactly shine — unlike Tim Gauld.

Many years ago, there was a BOL’s Bridge Tip called ‘Save the Deuce’, the principle being that you should take care to keep the lowest card in a long suit, in order to be able to decide who wins the last round of it. Tim must have been thinking of it when he played this brilliant defence against Saucepan’s 3NT:

Tim, sitting West, led the 9, which was won by declarer’s King when East played low. Saucepan then played a Club, Tim following with the ♣5, and dummy’s Queen taking the trick.

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