The Adventures of Poor Frank, Part XLIV: Lucky Archie and the Bard

The Adventures of Poor Frank, Part XLIV:  Lucky Archie and the Bard

By Ray Adams

frankandarchie@yahoo.com

It has been said that if a chimpanzee has enough paper and time that it will eventually type the complete works of Shakespeare.  In a bridge context, this must mean that Lucky Archie will someday play a hand like Bob Hamman.  That day came just the other night at the local duplicate club:

 

Lucky Archie and his partner were lucky to miss the 6♦ trap and instead found the 6♥ slam in the Moysian fit.  Poor Frank advanced his singleton diamond, taken by dummy’s ace.  Declarer led a spade and inserted the jack when East played low.  This won and Lucky Archie now successfully executed the club finesse.  He then pitched a diamond on the ace of clubs.  Next came a club ruff with a small heart.

South cashed the ace and king of spades, tossing two small diamonds from dummy.  He ruffed a spade with the ten of hearts and trumped dummy’s last club with his eight.  He ruffed his last spade with the king of hearts and led the king of diamonds.  Poor Frank trumped this, but it was the last trick for the defense.  Poor Frank exited with a trump, but dummy’s ace won and Lucky Archie still had the queen of hearts left to win the last trick.

“Look at that,” he said, “my special girl brought the slam home to me.”  This was a reference to the fact that many jokers among the local bridge buffs thought that Lucky Archie was in love with the Queen of Hearts.

Poor Frank was in such total awe of Lucky Archie’s declarer play on this hand that he almost bit his tongue when he fought to stop himself from congratulating his rival on this well-played hand.

“It must have been pure luck,” Poor Frank thought to himself.  “It just had to be.”