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Those who don’t play a 2♣ bid as game forcing over 1♦ might have tried that call, but Ringo chose a conservative 1NT. George’s 2NT raise seemed reasonable and of course Ringo bid the NT game.
As the card lay, 6♣ would be a making contract: the losing diamond is easily pitched on the ♠K and the doubleton ♣K allows declarer to come home with twelve tricks. In fact, 5♣ will come home against any 3-2 club break or the stiff King.
The 3NT contract, on the other hand, can be made without difficulty against any lead but a spade, thanks to the favorable club position. Unfortunately for Ringo, her good friend John quickly placed the ambiguous ♠7 on the table. Against NT contracts the boys lead second high from honor-less four card or longer suits, but the lead of the seven could have also been top of nothing from a two or three card holding. Since both majors were unbid, it was possible John was trying to find his partner’s suit. That left Paul with a bit of a quandary as to his partner’s spade length.
Ringo studied the board for a while, counted seven top tricks, eight if hearts behave, and saw very little chance for a ninth trick unless the ♣K was stiff or the ♠Q was played at trick one.
Before calling a card, she began to sing one of her favorite Beatles tunes:
Help! I need somebody. Help! Not just anybody.
Of course she was singing in her head only. She called for the ♠3 and when Paul’s ten appeared, rather than the hoped for Queen (best defense would have been a low spade), she began to sing Help! even louder - but fortunately still in her head.
It was clear to Ringo that without two entries to her hand, her seven card club suit would likely be useless, but just then some softer lyrics flew into her brain:
Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends…
Oh, I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends.
Surely John and Paul would like to assist her, she thought, or perhaps there was a way to coax them. Her good friends knew she did not have a four card major, but she could easily be (say) 3343 or 2344 for her 1NT bid, giving them an eight or nine card club fit. She desperately needed to convince John and Paul their best source for tricks was indeed clubs. Rather than unblock the ♣A, Ringo hoped that if she played diamonds instead, the defense would look elsewhere for tricks, a technique that often pays dividends – or blows up in your face.
After winning the ♠A, Ringo decided to lead the ♦7. John and the dummy played low, Paul winning the trick with his Jack. What in the world should Paul play next? He was staring at dummy’s ♠KJ8 ♥KQ108 ♦A86 ♣A to his right. His best play was to continue with the ♦Q, but could he possibly know that? The “obvious” play was a club to the stiff Ace.
So what did tricky Ringo do after winning the ♣A? She played another diamond naturally, this time it went 6, 5, 10, K, putting John on lead to do what? Here was the position after the fourth trick:
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