bridge

Love all; dealer South

North

47 5

!6 5 3

#A J 5

2J 10 9 8 5

West East

4J 9 6 4 2 4A 10 3

!Q 8 !A 7 4 2

#9 7 6 4 #Q 10 2

2K Q 27 6 2

South

4K Q 8

!K J 10 9

#K 8 3

2A 4 3

Matthew Granovetter's magazine Bridge Today runs a Rueful Rabbit contest. (Readers of Victor Mollo's books will know RR as a player who made wildly unlikely but successful bids and plays purely by accident.) This year's winning entry might have come from one of those books.

Both North and South did a little too much in reaching a contract of 3NT against which West led 44. East took her ace and returned the suit to South's king. There were problems in developing the clubs, but Kjell Moen made an intelligent start by leading low from hand. Perhaps West had started with Kx or Qx and would go wrong. West took her queen and cleared spades.

If the queen was doubleton, two entries to dummy would be needed to finesse and use the clubs, so declarer continued with a finesse of #J. After the finesse had lost, East would normally return a low heart and South's best chance would be to rise successfully with the king (to cut West's chances of gaining the lead) and lay down 2A, as the only hope of using the clubs. This brings nine tricks.

It did not go like that, for the finesse of #J won! Now with an extra entry to play clubs in an apparently more hopeful way, declarer ran 2J. West took her king and two more spades, then led a heart to partner's ace for two down.

"Sorry partner," East said. "He should have gone three down. I had #Q among my hearts."