The Adventures of Poor Frank, Part CXXVII: Two Ducks Cook a Goose

The Adventures of Poor Frank, Part CXXVII:  Two Ducks Cook a Goose

By Ray Adams

frankandarchie@yahoo.com

Two ducks by Lucky Archie cooked Poor Frank’s goose just the other night at the local duplicate club.

Poor Frank took a shot at 3NT after West opened with a weak two diamond call.  Many Norths chose to pull their partner’s 3NT bid to a four spade contract, but this particular North had all the faith in the world in Poor Frank and let his partner labor away in the nine trick game.

West led the queen of diamonds and this was allowed to hold.  West now switched to a small heart.  This went to dummy’s queen, ducked by Lucky Archie.  Readers can see that if Lucky Archie had covered, this would have established a late entry to dummy’s spades, allowing Poor Frank to make the contract.

Poor Frank came to hand with the ace of clubs and led the jack of spades, playing low from dummy.  Lucky Archie also casually ducked this trick, surprising Poor Frank to no end.  If readers study this play carefully, they will see that if Lucky Archie had taken his queen, then Poor Frank could have later overtaken his king with dummy’s ace, smothering the ten and ran the spades to make his contract.

But now, Poor Frank was left absolutely horrified.  Somehow, Lucky Archie had made two outstanding plays in a row and caused the bold 3NT contract to go down three for an absolute bottom.  This also meant that Lucky Archie would surpass Poor Frank as that evening’s winner.

“How could you duck both those tricks?”  Poor Frank said to Lucky Archie after the hand was over.

“Unfortunately for you, Frankie baby,” Lucky Archie replied, “I’ve been reading a book called Sweet Ducks and Cooked Geese.”

“Is that even a bridge book?”  Poor Frank said.