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To heck with playing the ♥10, Demonic Deirdre thought to herself, the probability of succeeding was way too low. Instead she nonchalantly placed the King of diamonds on the table, a diabolical loser-on-loser play!? In theory of course, it gained her nothing, as she still held onto the ♦8. Fortunately, the Duchess of Deception realized that Lois had continued with a suit preference ♣10, asking Clark to return a spade rather than a diamond. Surely it was Clark who held the Ace of diamonds. When Clark ruffed with the ♥8, the defenders’ third trick, it was his turn to ponder.
Demonic Dierdre had heard several people compliment Clark’s bridge acumen, saying that he plays like he can see through the backs of everyone’s cards. (How super is that!) The Duchess of Deception was about to find out if it were true, as she dared Clark to cash the diamond Ace.
Clark realized that since dependable Lois had opened the bidding, she was very likely to hold the ♠K, and/or the trump Ace or King, and he did not want to see his ♦A get ruffed out to set up another winner in dummy. Thus, he dutifully returned a spade, confident that they would be beating the contract.
Having accomplished her mission, Demonic Dierdre twirled herself back into Sweet DeeDee as she won the King of spades in hand. She cashed the ♥A next and held her breath hoping both opponents would follow suit, and when they did, she had a claimer. She announced that she would cash the trump King and then go over to CeeCee’s ♠A so that she could pitch her losing ♦8(!) on the Queen of clubs, making her unmakeable game.
The opponents were stunned, especially Clark the Shark, who did have two questions. He asked Sweet DeeDee if that was her real name and how in fact had she came up such a devilish play. Sweet DeeDee disclosed that her birthname was “just plain Deirdre” and, not wanting to embarrass Clark, she told him a little red lie: she was pretty sure she had sorted her ♦8 in with her hearts, thereby sparing him the more sordid details.
Postmortem: At the other table, Sweet DeeDee and CeeCee’s teammates defended 1♥. The same light 1♣ opener and 1♥ overcall were followed by three passes for -170 (this time the ♠J was the opening lead), a nice 6 Imp swing. As for Sweet DeeDee, she was on Cloud Nine for having bamboozled such a super player as Clark. And now she is absolutely certain he does not have X-ray vision. Great Caesar’s ghost!
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