At long last Bigot Johnson has laid his hands on a pairs trophy. This happened very recently at the Walnut Tree Allotment BC's grand jamboree fund-raising event. Bigot turned up without a partner, having lost his last one in tragic circumstances. Fortunately, there were a few floaters around, and one seemed quite happy to play with him. Introduced as Ivor " Third-eye" Yurno, Bigot had his doubts about whether this guy could play bridge at all, but these very quickly disappeared as his partner brought off contract after contract. Every guess he had to make proved correct. He seemed to have an uncanny knack of knowing the position of all the key cards. Nothing provided greater proof of this than hand 26.
The contract was 3 NT in which Bigot found himself yet again as dummy. All he had in his hand was AQJ1098 in clubs and 3 small doubletons outside. Third-eye had a goodish hand but only a small singleton club. Having mustered 6 tricks from the first seven, the time had come to play clubs. Bigot, for once had counted the opposition's distribution. Third-eye's RHO clearly had length in the three other suits, leaving his LHO to hold the majority of the outstanding clubs. That favoured the RHO to hold the King. At trick 8 Third-eye lead a small club toward dummy and without any thought or hesitation played the Ace.....felling the stiff off-side King ! Then after gathering up the next 5 tricks, he entered up a score of +690 with Bigot's jaw still firmly fixed to the floor.
Later on after walking away with the trophy, Bigot turned to Third-eye and said : " I know now why you went up with the Ace on that 3NT hand.......because if the LHO opponent holds the king of clubs..... yes.... the finesse will work, but only two tricks are possible since he will have sufficient length in the suit to protect it . The only chance you had of making the contract therefore was to rise with the Ace, and find your RHO with the stiff king. Such simple logic. "
But to Bigot's great surprise, Third-eye replied ; " Logic never came into it. I knew it was there. You happen to be playing with Bill Boy Bunko's oldest and best friend......you know, the one who worked for a major card manufacturer. I was incredibly fortunate to come across packs of cards with of one of my patterned designs on the back ".
Bigot was almost lost for words.....except for three......."Well, bugger me..."
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