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Frosty advised that his partner bid an aggressive 4♠ over West’s weak jump overcall, but had she bid only 3♠, he would have carried on to game, as most did. He was certain everyone in 4♠ was greeted with the lead of the ♦K.
Frosty remarked: “As I stared at dummy, I knew right away that players like Sandburg, Longfellow, Dickinson (Emily, not John), even Nash and e e cummings – well, maybe not e e – would take the safe route to make their contact, perhaps with an overtrick. They would win their ♦A, take the K-A of clubs and ruff a third club. As you can see, no matter how they chose to get back to their hand, all would go well. They would be able to ruff another club successfully, and the friendly heart layout (just one heart loser after knocking out the ♠K and cashing the ♥A) meant everyone would make an overtrick – except for Sandburg. He was, as always, in a “Fog” and somehow took only ten tricks.
Then Frosty opened his iPhone to read me what the Common Game guy had to say: “Declarers who could not see the backs of the cards, will likely ruff 2 club losers and will not be able to pick up North’s [spade] King. Declarer wins 11 tricks, losing a spade trick and a heart trick.” Just as Frosty had predicated.
Of course, now I was obligated to take the bait and ask my bridge-mate what was going on in his head.
Frosty was glad I asked: “I kept thinking about the anemic looking 5-card heart suit in dummy AND my grandfather’s poem. Matchpoint bridge is not about looking for safety – that’s what you do playing IMPs. If you want to win at matchpoints, you need to take some risks, but only if are not totally out of bounds. As an example: if the line those other poets took was going to give them (say) an 85% chance for 10 or 11 tricks, what should you do if you discovered a 60% chance to make 11 or 12 tricks, but this one also had a greater probability of going down?”
I suggested that the odds of making the contract were still in declarer’s favor and that I’ve been known to risk my contract – and then go down – while searching for additional tricks. “So what did you conjure up?” I inquired.
Frosty said he just couldn’t let that heart suit go unused, so his plan was to pitch the club losers on the long hearts. After winning the ♦A, he decided to draw trumps first and forget about club ruffs. Per Frosty: “After all, there was a pretty good chance that the ♠K was onside. There is a saying that if the preemptor doesn’t lead his short suit to try to get a ruff, his short suit is trumps. I ran the ♠8 and when it held, I played the Queen next, winning, and almost as expected, my LHO showed out.
“This was good news and bad. I could now pick up East’s four trumps, but I could be in for trouble if the heart suit didn’t behave. If I were to lose the lead twice and my opponents kept playing diamonds, I could totally lose control and go down. I played a third spade to my hand and before cashing the fourth one, I played the ♥A to see if I could learn anything. When West played the ♥9 and East the 5, I almost jumped for joy! If West had KJ9, K9 or J9, twelve tricks would be easy. If he held ♥96 and was showing count, I could still make 11 tricks if East started with only two diamonds. In that case he could lead diamonds just once.”
Frosty cashed the Ace of spades, felling the King, and led the ♥10 from his hand, covered by the J,Q,K. A diamond did come next, ruffed by Frosty, and he led his remaining heart to dummy and claimed, pitching his two club losers on the good hearts.
Not only was Frosty pleased with his successful line, he loved the fact that the Common Game writeup pretty much laid out that “two roads diverged” and no one was expected to take “the one less traveled.” As the CG guy put it: “There is a Double Dummy line to make 12 tricks that takes advantage of the heart layout,” but he believed few declarers would find this line, as they would have to “see through the backs of the cards.” I guess he didn’t know about good old Mister Frosty.
Postmortem: Choosing the road less traveled had in fact made all the difference. The 4♠ contract with two overtricks was worth 94% in the Common Game and a top at North Penn. Eleven tricks was still worth a comfortable 78% (75% at our club). Sandburg’s ten tricks, on the other hand, scored well below average.
Frosty was proud he had chosen the “road not taken,” and he was convinced he couldn’t have done it without his grandpa.
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