The Most Delicious En Passant Ever To Cross The Palate

    Tropical Storm Gabrielle closed the doors on all local bridge games - even the Venice sectional - except at the Fair Play Bridge Club.  On Friday September  14-th  at the Elk's Club on Fruitville with no electricity, tables set up near the windows and candle-power in the bathrooms, I picked up the following assortment:  9653 - A9832 - A9 - 82  and Rho opens one spade.  Red against white, I would not even consider bidding at any form of the game except match points.  At any rate I bid  2  hearts and there is a negative double on my left, followed by three passes.  Oh - oh, looks like a phone number is coming up their way, but I can always blame Gabrielle.  Here's the full deal which is quite easy to present to you accurately with our hand records (Hand  9 - green set):

 

                                                   J 2

                                                   10 5

                                                   J 10 7 6

                                                   A Q J 9 7

 

                                    A 8                            K Q 10 7 4

                                    7 4                            K Q J 6

                                    K Q 5 4 2                   8 3

                                    K 10 6 5                    4 3

 

                                                    9 6 5 3

                                                    A 9 8 3 2

                                                    A 9

                                                    8 2

 

    The opening lead is the spade ace, followed by a spade to East's queen, and a switch to the diamond  8-spot.  I thought for a moment and won the ace, and finessed to the club jack.  Stop here and take the reins if you wish, you cannot be denied nine tricks with the correct line of play.  I cashed the club ace, ruffed a club with the heart deuce, East discarding a diamond.  I led the third spade and Lho (after some deliberating) discarded the club king while the heart  5  became trick five.  I led the fourth club ruffing with the heart eight, and followed by trumping the spade nine with the heart ten.  And now the title of this article becomes clear as I led the fifth club.  Rho is down to K Q J 6  of hearts while I be holding  A 9 3 of hearts and the diamond  9.  He ruffed high so I naturally discarded my diamond.  He led a top honor and I followed with the  3, holding the Ace - nine over his jack - six for the last two tricks and  + 870.

 

    Epilog:  There were sure a lot of eights, nines and tens in this deal.  Also, if Lho switches to a heart at trick two, the phone would still be ringing.  Perhaps my lesson should be to pass such rags, but it generally pays to be competitive at match points.

See ya' at the table,            Chris Niemann