Bridge

When South looked up on today’s deal, he found that he had gone down. If only he had counted the nouns (his tricks) with an adverb (carefully), he would have avoided suffering another noun (defeat).

South’s rebid of two no-trump showed 18-19 points. This was an accurate assessment of his hand. That excellent club suit was worth another 2 or 3 points.

The defenders led spades, declarer ducking his ace until the third round.

To play this club holding for no losers, South knew that it was better to take an immediate finesse than to cash the ace first and then finesse. Therefore, South played a heart to the ace and finessed the club jack. However, West won with the queen and cashed his two spade winners: down one.

South had four top tricks outside clubs. So he needed only five club tricks, not six. Also, as it was in his best interest to keep West off the lead, South should have cashed the club ace-king, not taken a finesse at all. Here the queen drops, and declarer makes an overtrick. If the queen doesn’t appear, South leads a third club, hoping East has the queen (or that the spades are 4-4).