Rookie Wife Brings it Home!

[kenrexford]

[hv=d=n&v=e&n=s10xhak8xdqxxcaqxx&w=skjxhqj109xdk109xcx&e=s9xxxh7xxdxcjxxxx&s=saqxxhxdajxxxckxx]399|300|Scoring: MP[/hv]

 

Sweets, who is a new bridge player (56 ACBL masterpoints), opened North 1♣. Pass from my RHO, and I responded 1♦. My LHO now overcalled 1♥, and Sweets bid 1NT. Because of systemic agreements, 1NT denied a four-card spade suit.

 

After another pass from my RHO, I cuebid 2♥. My wife showed a stopper. I cuebid 3♥ to ask for a second stopper, and she bid 3NT.

 

The heart lead was the seven, systemic as "top of trash." How to play this?

 

 

 

SPOILER -- figure it out, and then read on!!!

 

 

 

So, my wife won the heart and then tested clubs. Small to King, small to Queen. When the bad split was known, she finessed a diamond, losing.

 

Now, the fun stuff. A second heart came back. As dummy, I saw the end position, as did poor LHO. But, it seemed impossible to imagine my wife visualizing this at such an early point in her development.

 

However, things got interesting when she had to find a pitch on the second heart (she did not duck). With two idle spades in dummy, she pitched a club!

 

This was great news for me, and sobering news for my LHO. Sweets had inadvertently executed a critical scissors coup on herself (having finessed diamonds initially by leading the Queen toward dummy -- a key move as it turned out, in a backwards way). Now, she paused to study the hand. DAMN! She had just scissors couped herself in clubs. "Oh well! I better cash it while I have the chance!"

 

This scissors coup, you see, forced her closer to the right line. She had to play the Vienna-Coup-like squeeze card immediately. The next play is even more sexy.

 

With the same two idle cards in spades, she tossed a diamond! I disliked this development, because it suggested that she thought attacking spades was right. However, as you can see, the second of the small diamonds was actually an idle card as well.

 

This is the play of a person who KNOWS the distribution, exactly, and has worked out the end position. This brilliant coup (actually...) caused my LHO to look at me and squirm mercilessly.

 

"That play makes no sense," he thought, "unless she knows what is going on. But, she cannot know that. Not Rexford's wife. Not yet. But... But... She's taunting me? She's egging me to bear down to a stiff spade King? Or, is she trying to induce me to jettison a high heart and underlead to her heart 8? It cannot be! What?!?!? I cannot believe this! THIS IS UNFAIR!!!"

 

In the end, he decided that it was more likely that she was relying upon a spade finesse, with perhaps 109x or something. In the end, he was in fact thrown in when "bad luck" struck and diamonds also did not split for Sweets. "Is the fourth diamond good?"

 

Now, here's the true question here. Was this a funny hand, or...

 

Could it be...?

 

Is Sweets secretly already the better player in our marriage????

[bid_em_up]

Sweets?

 

You don't call her Precious?

 

LOL!