I had a bit of an uncontrollable giggle on this hand (which nobody else heard but me, of course). Imagine this hand:
Game All, Dealer WestYou are North, holding
North K3
K9652
K7
Q654
Bidding (Opps silent)
North South1
1NT
2
3
All Pass
South (Dummy) 64
Q10
J865
AKJ109
Ace ledNorth K3
K9652
K7
Q654
East follows the
Ace with the Queen, West echoing with the 7 and then the 5. You play 2 rounds of trumps ending in hand. West discards a small Diamond on the second round of trumps. Now a Heart to the Queen loses to West's Ace and their return of the
3 crashes your King, Dummy's 10 and East's Jack.
Partner (Paula in the North seat) ruffed a Heart in Dummy, cashed one more round of Clubs (on which West discarded the
and then led a Diamond off Dummy, on which West played small and East contributed the 9. A second Diamond from Paula was won by East's Queen and they now played a
3rd round of Diamonds, their 10 covered by Dummy's Jack and West's Ace and ruffed in hand.
What now?
Declarer, if they've counted the hand, should know
exactly where every card that matters lies:
We've won 8 tricks. The position is now known to be
South (Dummy) -
-
8
K
East West ?
??
7
-
-
-
-
-
North -
96
-
-
You've heard of "Loser on Loser" plays. Well this contract was never in doubt and 3
was a very good score, because lots of NS Pairs either stretched too far and/or didn't get the considerate lead of the
Ace at trick 1, but Paula now came up with a new concept, the "Winner on Loser" Play
:
The
9 was good and the
8 was good (East had played the Q, 10 and 9, West the Ace and West discarded a small Diamond on the 2nd trump), so Paula had multiple options here to take the last 2 tricks: cash the
9, discarding the
8 and then ruff the
6, of ruffing
either Heart and then cashing the
8. Paula chose a 3rd option, which was to lead the
6 (the losing Heart) and then
discard the good
8 when West covered with the 7.
A "Senior Moment" or a misclick, I suspect, but it was quite funny at the time.