November 2020 - 61

Special Contributors

Bridge with the Abbot
BY DAVID BIRD

Brother Dwayne's great play
The Abbot was playing his monthly
game in the novitiate duplicate. His
next opponents were Brother Sam and
Brother Dwayne, both of whom had entered the novitiate only a few months
before. Against such inexperienced
opponents, top scores were a near certainty. Still, a few encouraging words in
their direction might not go amiss.
The Abbot attempted a welcoming
smile. "How have you two been doing?"
"Not too badly," the shaven-headed
Brother Dwayne replied. "We scored
the usual two bottoms against Brother
Cameron. He's amazingly good."
"You mustn't let him intimidate you,"
declared the Abbot. "He may think he's
a good player, but he rarely does well in
the senior duplicate."
"He told us he came in second to Lucius and Paulo last week," said Brother
Dwayne.
"I doubt it," replied the Abbot. "I
rarely look at the final results, but
Brother Cameron played very poorly at
my table."
The players drew their cards:
Dlr: West ♠ 10 8 6 5 3
Vul: Both ♥ 6 2
♦ 10 8 3
♣K93
♠Q4
♠J972
♥87
♥KJ4
♦QJ97
♦64
♣AQJ74
♣ 10 8 6 2
♠AK
♥ A Q 10 9 5 3
♦AK52
♣5

West North
The
Bro.
Abbot Sam
1♣
Pass
All Pass

East
Bro.
Damien
2♣

South
Bro.
Dwayne
4♥

The Abbot led the ♦Q, and Brother
Dwayne won with the king. He had
one loser in clubs and, after the opening lead, could presumably restrict
his diamond losers to one by leading
towards dummy's ♦10. In that case,
he would need to lose only one trump
trick. He would have to start with the
ace of trumps. If two spot cards appeared, he would have to guess whether the king was then bare and could
be dropped, or the jack was bare and
could be pinned by leading the queen.
In his time as captain of bridge at the
Holy Cross school in Chelmsford, he
had usually played to pin the jack. It
looked so much more impressive when
it worked!
Another chance occurred to the
young player. The Abbot was likely
to hold the ♣A. Suppose he played a
club towards the king. The Abbot was
unlikely to duck, after his partner had
raised the suit, but he might, perhaps,
have some difficulty in finding a safe
return.
With this play in mind, Brother
Dwayne cashed the ace and king of
spades, happy to see the queen fall
from the Abbot on the second round.
There was a good chance that he would
now be out of spades. The novice
continued with a low club and the
Abbot rose with the ace. He sat back

in his chair. It was typical of his luck
that a complete beginner at the game
should exceed his brief at this particular moment. Now, what could he do?
A continuation in either minor was
decidedly unattractive. It looked as if
he would have to open the trump suit.
When the Abbot led the ♥8 to his
partner's jack, Brother Dwayne won
with the queen. He cashed the ace of
trumps and both defenders followed,
the king not appearing. A subsequent
lead towards dummy's ♦10 then gave
him the game.
Brother Damien glanced at the score
sheet on his right, observing that minus 620 had not exactly given them a
good score. Perhaps the Abbot should
have led the ♣A after his suit had been
raised? If he exited with a spade at
trick two, declarer would have to read
the cards well to escape for one down.
Brother Dwayne turned towards the
Abbot. "I played the two top spades so
that you couldn't exit in that suit," he
said.
The Abbot blinked in disbelief at this
inappropriate lack of modesty. "It's not
the St. Titus way to gloat over a fortunate result," he reprimanded. "One day,
if you're lucky, you will have the chance
to play in the senior duplicate. On this
deal, almost the entire field would find
the obvious play of cashing the top
spades."
With some difficulty Brother
Damien managed to keep a straight
face. What an absurd observation, even
by the Abbot's standards! Cashing the
top spades had been a great play.
◾
November 2020 Bridge Bulletin

November 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of November 2020