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Duddy’s 2♥ bid promised a 4-bagger and no one was quite sure what East’s double meant. Elmer decided to pass that call, hoping West would pass too, perhaps thinking it was for penalty.
West presumed that her partner had some values and was asking her to pick the suit, so she decided that 2♠ was high enough. Elmer’s aggressive jump to 4♥ ended the auction and West led the ♠K.
When East played the ♠7 and South the 2, West assumed her partner held the ♠A1073. Her plan was to use a forcing defense, that is, continually make declarer ruff, as West “knew” that trumps were not going to break well. She therefore continued the ♠Q to the 6, 3, 10, and was very surprised she won the trick. She couldn’t persist with spades since declarer would ruff out partner’s Ace, establishing dummy’s Jack. Instead she played Ace and another diamond, putting declarer in dummy, and sat back to await the trump finesse into her stiff King for down one.
Elmer had other ideas, however. He had been at North Penn the day that Hobo Joe had lectured on “vacant places” [see N Penn Newsletter 5/14/24] and he was trying valiantly to make sense of the distribution - and East’s double - to determine who held the ♥K. He knew spades were 4-3 in favor of West but he was totawwy betwixt about the other suits.
Obviously, if East had the stiff ♥K, Elmer’s problem would be easily resolved, and if he’s void, there would be nothing Elmer could do but claim down one. But what if Elmer played the trump Jack from dummy and his RHO followed with the 6? Should he play for Kx in the slot or for a 1-1 break? Did East’s double indicate that he was the one more likely to have the doubleton King rather than just the 6? How would you determine what to do - before seeing East’s hand, of course – finesse or drop?
The answer was remarkably simple for Elmer. Believe it or not, it was neither!
No longer chasing wabbits, Elmer has been busy setting wabbit twaps to upend his bridge opponents – and this time his plan was almost foolproof. As long as East held at least one trump, he would succeed because “yaw advewsawies cannot see yaw cards – so take utmost advantage!”
Having won the ♦K in dummy, Elmer next led a spade to ruff out East’s Ace and establish the ♠J for a pitch. But he didn’t need a pitch, so why bother? He suggests you review the last sentence of the previous paragraph.
Elmer led a club to dummy’s Ace and played the ♠J. If East could see Elmer’s hand, he would know this was a ploy, but he had no idea whatsoever that Elmer had 7 hearts and no side-suit losers. If the ♥6 was a singleton, East would surely play that card without giving it a second thought - in order to keep declarer from discarding his (non-existent) loser. When that’s exactly what occurred, Elmer overruffed, cashed his ♥A, dropping the offside King, and claimed.
Suppose East had the ♥K6? He would very likely ruff, already imagining his King couldn’t score unless his partner held the Ace. But no matter which trump he chose, Elmer was going to overruff and make his contract. A simple but beautiful plan.
Postmortem: You have to love Elmer’s twickewy, but what if East had decided not to ruff? Elmer would next play dummy’s ♥J and if his RHO followed low, he would take the finesse. No one with a stiff 6 could possibly have failed to ruff! No one, that is, except his all-time nemesis.
Had that wascawwy wabbit Bugs been East, he would certainly realize Elmer was trying to play him for a “dumb bunny.” Bugs would have nonchalantly discarded a club when the ♠J appeared. Then when Elmer played the ♥J from dummy, Bugs would have followed with the 6, and Elmer – foolproof plan in place – would have lost the finesse to the stiff King. And would no doubt have cried out: “I’ll get you, you scwewy wabbit! ACBL Zewo Towewance Powicy be damned!”
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