The Adventures of Poor Frank, Part LII: A Different Point of View
By Ray Adams
frankandarchie@yahoo.com
A few readers have recently sent in e-mails complaining that the adventures of Poor Frank and Lucky Archie are always presented from Poor Frank’s point of view and have said that they would like to see at least one blog that shows Lucky Archie’s side of the story. The editors of raysbridgeblog always take into account the desires of their readers, and the following blog is a result of this:
This is what Lucky Archie said about the hand in an exclusive interview. “Well, I reached a 4♥ contract on exceedingly strong bidding and Poor Frank led the ace of spades. This drew dummy’s two, East’s jack and I cleverly falsecarded with the four. Frank continued with the king and East played the queen on this. I wondered what East was up to. After all, it’s quite normal to play the queen from a queen/jack combination when partner’s lead indicates possession of the ace/king. I thought I might dupe Poor Frank into misreading the situation if I threw the ten. And I did so. Frank now led the five of spades and I realized I had tossed the high spade so I had to ruff. I did so with dummy’s four. This ruse obviously worked when East tossed a small club. I then drew trumps, losing only a trick to Frank’s ace and claimed. It came as no surprise to me when I found out this was a top board as years of playing in this club have convinced me that I am its premium declarer.”
Indeed, Lucky Archie was the only South to make 4♥ on this hand as all the other declarers in this contract ruffed the third spade with the ten of hearts to prevent an overruff and later lost two heart tricks to West to go down one.
Here is the conclusion of the Lucky Archie interview: “As I was leaving the bridge studio, I could not help but notice that Poor Frank was staring intently into a mirror. I was not certain what he was doing, although he definitely had the appearance of a man searching for new gray hairs.”
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