Elementary, my dear Watson!

Dr. Watson was kibitzing his old friend Sherlock Holmes, who was playing a little rubber at their club in London. Watson didn't play bridge. Well, he did play but never with Holmes. In fact, nobody wanted to sit at Holmes's table. Everybody thought he could see through the cards: he always took winning finesses, always found a missing Queen and always made the right switch. Furthermore, Holmes had a nasty tongue that frightened all his partners. At dummy's sight, he would take out his magnifying glass, lean over the table, examining carefully his partner's cards and would almost always say: "My dear friend, even with a magnifying glass, I can't find what you promised me in the bidding."

The only players willing to play with Holmes were Jack the Ripper, Dr. Moriarty and Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard. Jack and Moriarty played together, naturally, and the inspector teamed with Holmes, the good against the bad, like when we were kids.

Left of Holmes sat Jack the Ripper. Holmes, 4th seat, opened his hand:



Jack led a heart.



When dummy hit, Holmes jumped on his chair, took out his magnifying glass, leaned slowly over the table and started to examine the cards. He hovered like a helicopter, going from the spades to the hearts, suddenly diving towards those two little clubs. He would then look at the inspector through his magnifying glass. The inspector, not a bit intimidated, opposed a defying grin that only all-powerful government officials can display.

At first glance, Watson could count 6 losers: 2 spades, 2 diamonds and 2 clubs. He was prepared to listen to the chapter of insults that Holmes generally addressed to his partners who grossly misbid. But his cell phone rang. He had to go away to answer and, by the time he returned, the hand was over. He bent down to check the score sheet and saw 100 in Holmes's column. Holmes had made 11 tricks! Holmes sensed his old friend's amazement, turned to him and offered his most mischievous smile.

After the game, walking back to his flat on Baker Street, Holmes explained the hand.
"So, this hand, Holmes, how did you make 11 tricks?" asked Watson. "3 winning finesses, I imagine?"

Watson knew only finesses in bridge. That is the reason why Holmes would not play with him.

"No, said Holmes. I would say maybe one, if finesse means 50% chance of winning. Once the 1st finesse won, the rest was forced."
"Can you elaborate?"

"Heart lead," reminded Holmes. "The bidding has revealed that my friend Jack has 6 spades. Does he have a singleton heart? Not likely. He has 3 or 4. One cannot accuse Jack of being timid in the bidding either. With seven spades, I know him, he would have rebid 3. On dummy's small heart, Moriarty played the Queen and I won with the Ace. The heart Jack was then most probably on my left. To find the club king, I have to locate the Ace of spades first. It is the only play where I need to be lucky, 50%, to be exact. So I played a spade. Jack jumped with his Ace and played back a spade, Moriarty following with the Queen and the Jack. So, for his opening bid, Jack has 6 spades to the Ace, probably the heart Jack, the King of diamonds (with the Jack maybe) and the King of clubs. So, after the King of spades, I played a club to my Ace, picking up Jack's stiff King."
"Bravo, Holmes!"
"Elementary, my dear Watson!"
"So, a beer at the Piccadilly Circus, Holmes?"
"I have not finished, Watson. So far, I have only 10 tricks. How did I make 11?"
"One of them revoked?"
"I played the 9 of hearts, ducked in dummy. Moriarty won the 10 and played a club. I won in dummy with the 7. Everything is in place now for a trump coup."
"Donald Trump? Where, Holmes??"
"Not Donald Trump, Watson, a Trump Coup. This is the position:



King of hearts, Moriarty follows, I pitch a diamond and the Jack falls on my left. The 8 of hearts - which is big, Moriarty follows and I ruff..."
"Why ruff a winner? Have you smoked again?"
"No, Watson. To succeed, I have to reduce my trumps to the same number as Moriarty. In fact, here we have a Grand Trump Coup because I ruff a winning card in order to reduce my trump holding. So small diamond to the Queen."
"Ah ha! A finesse !!"
"No, not a finesse. A certainty. In dummy with the diamond Queen, I play spade, Moriarty discards and I ruff again."
"Again ??"



"Small diamond to the Ace and diamond. Moriarty is finished. That's what we call a Grand Trump Coup. With this coup, you pick up one of opponent's trumps without playing trump. It is a beautiful coup, rare enough to talk about it when it arrives."

At the corner of Oxford Street, they noticed a crowd near Selfridges, one of the biggest department store of London. They rushed over, sensing something had happened. The police, recognizing Holmes, let them through. On the sidewalk was lying Dr. Moriarty, dead, his chest ripped opened.

"What happened?" asked Holmes.
"Jack the Ripper left his card," he heard.
"You can say that again," mumbled Holmes.

On the corpse they found a playing card covered in blood.

"What card is it, Holmes?" asked Dr. Watson.
"Elementary, my dear Watson! It is the card Moriarty had to play to defeat 5 Clubs."

Phryne

Phryne before the Areopagus by Jean-Léon Gérôme, c. 1861
Phryne, Greek courtesan from the 4th century BC, mistress of master sculptor Praxiteles, was so beautiful that she served as a model when Praxiteles decided to give shape and face to the goddess Aphrodite.

Accused of impiety, Phryne appeared before the Heliasts, Athenian judges who sat at sunrise (the Greek word Helios means sun).

Her lawyer defended her to the best of his capacity, but failed to really convince the judges of her innocence.

Running out of arguments, he decided to undress the beautiful courtesan. The Heliasts, dazzled by her amazing beauty, immediately declared her innocent, as a woman of such beauty could only be a prophetess of Aphrodite and she must have been telling the truth.

Thus, truth is always beautiful, and beauty is always true.



You play 4♥, with opponents silent in the auction, and LHO leads the Queen of diamonds.

Count your losers: 1 spade, 1 heart, 1 diamond and 1 or 2 clubs. 5 losers, that’s a lot.

You probably can ruff a club in dummy, which eliminates a loser, but you still have to find the Queen of hearts.

After ruffing a club in dummy, you need to find the heart Queen. So with this line of play, you make 1 spade, 5 hearts (subject to finding the Queen), 2 diamonds, 1 club and 1 club ruffed: 10 tricks.

But this line doesn’t appeal to you, it lacks flexibility, it is not natural, it is complicated.

Moreover, after playing Ace of clubs and a club, opponents will return a diamond, establishing a trick in that suit.

You win the second diamond, ruff a club and then what? Spade to your Queen? Opponents take their king and cash their diamond trick and you still have to find the Queen of hearts. No, this line is not elegant. There must be something simpler, more natural, more... beautiful.

While you think, opponents waiting patiently, Phryne walks in your mind: to convince the judges, she just unveiled her charm and beauty.

You cannot stop thinking that the answer to your problem lies in these simple words: beauty seduces because it is the truth, and truth dazzles with its beauty. The judges, before the perfect curves of divine Phryne, could only agree: she was so beautiful that she could only tell the truth.

Perfect forms are perfectly smooth, without rough edges: curves, bends, harmony, music, perfect, eurhythmy. Your mind plays with these thoughts: just remove the veils and the truth will appear, naked, indisputable.

You count again but this time, your winners: 1 spade, 4 hearts, 2 diamonds and 1 club: 8 winners.

If the King of Spades is on your right, you will make your Queen, 9 tricks.

It means going to dummy to play a spade to your Queen. Then you must return to dummy a second time to cash the Ace (after unblocking the Queen in your hand).

Suddenly, your heart races, and the emotion you feel convinces you that you have finally seen the truth.

And this line is so beautiful, so smooth, it appeals to you immediately. You are certain this is the right course of play, the only one, the true one.

You play a small heart to dummy, LHO plays small, you insert the 10, it wins! Then, as in a dream, small spade to your hand.

RHO rises with the King and returns a diamond. You win your King, unblock the Queen of Spades and play the Jack of hearts.

LHO covers, dummy wins as RHO provides the 9. You then have the opportunity, what am I saying?, the luxury of playing a small spade that you ruff with the King of hearts.

Next you play a small heart to the 8 in dummy, cash your 2 good spades and claim 11 tricks !

What beauty, what incredible magic. The four hands:



You see that your first line of play (club ruff) would not work, getting overruffed by RHO. Even if you ruff with the 10, you go down.

Often, at the bridge, we refuse to see, to submit ourselves to the evidence, we choose to be blind and deaf.

Often, the cards tell us how to play, how to handle them: we just have to watch and listen.

Do cards have an inherent beauty, an underlying harmony, that we have to discover and follow, like a piece by Mozart or Bach?

Complicated lines of play resemble the convoluted language of lawyers, tedious, tortuous, where sentences end up not saying anything.

What is complicated is never beautiful. The Heliastes understood all that.

They refused all the lawyer’s quibbling which obscured the truth. When Phryne showed herself in all her splendour, they had to accept the evidence of the truth.

At bridge, cards always tell the truth. What about lawyers? Well...

The Apple - Law and Principle

The apple tree has always attracted human kind: Adam and Eve, Newton and... Eric Kokish.  What?  Yes, Eric has once written that if you shake an apple tree (well, a bridge tree?!), ten good dummy players will fall, but maybe only one good bidder.
 
Is the one good bidder the same apple that Newton received on his nose (ok, maybe it fell at his feet)?

The pain Newton felt prompted him to invent the Law of Gravity.  The pain of going down one has also prompted Matthew Granovetter to formulate the Law of Granovetter, or should we say the Law of Gravitynovetter: "Don’t bid a grand slam if you cannot count 13 tricks".
 
Well, after Newton came Albert Einstein who said that "Imagination is more important than knowledge" and that the fast ball Newton saw falling from the tree is actually a curve ball.
 
Then, in 1990, after winning a world championship in Geneva, Gabriel Chagas who often throws curve balls has invented the Chagas Principle: "If you're lucky or good on the first board, things are probably going to go your way".

So, all this gibberish means that if you think in straight lines, you are applying the Law of Gravitynovetter.
 
And if you think in curves, if you let your imagination sometimes supersede your knowledge, you are following the Chagas Principle.
 
In the second session of a Calcutta, you pick up your first hand:



Partner opens 1♣, you bid 1♥.  Partner jumps to 3NT, showing long solid clubs.  This is the time to imagine: if partner has Qx or even Jx in hearts, you have a chance in 6♥.  You have no means to know, you must imagine.
 
You were average in the afternoon, tonight you must make it happen.
 
The longer you think, the less you know and the more you find that you have to plunge.  You bid 6♥.


 
Dummy is one card short of your imagination but then again, dummies always lack imagination.  You take the ♦K lead with your Ace, go to dummy  with a ♠, play AK of ♣ to pitch a ♦  and a ♠.  The moment has come:  Q of trumps... holds.  You ruff a ♦ and, imagining Jx somewhere, you play K of trumps... for the J and Ace: +1430 (12 IMPS).
 
In the 3rd round, the opponents, after pre-empts (curve balls) from your part, play 6♠ and 4♠, go down in both contracts and you gain 17 IMPS.  You feel you can't lose now.
 
In the fifth round, white against red, you and your partner throw a rising fast ball, one can't always throw curve balls, can one?


 
Partner plays AK of ♥ and ♥.  Declarer pulls trumps and plays Q of ♣.  You cover.  She takes the Ace and plays... the J from her hand?!  A mean sinker.  One down: + 13 IMPS.
 
Is this possible?
 
In the 6th round, the opponents climb up to 5♣ vul, doubled.  Declarer can escape for - 200, but makes also a mistake and you reap +500, 6 IMPS.
 
After 7 rounds, you are + 61 IMPS.  Halfway to go.
 
In the 8th round, you pick up:


 
The bidding:


 
4♠ is KCB and 5♠ asks for specific king(s);  5NT shows the K of ♠ and does not deny another king; 6♣ asks specifically for the king of clubs and 6♥ denies it.  What do you do?  Do you know if partner has the Q of ♠ or the Q of ♦?  No.
 
You are at the crossroads: do you follow the Law of Gravitynovetter?
With this hand, you know you can count only 12 tricks.  Or should you apply the Chagas Principle?  Should you bid 7NT, even if partner has denied the king of ♣?  Should you imagine 13 tricks even if you cannot count 13 tricks?  Should you go against the Law of Gravitynovetter?
 
Yes, and you cannot miss:  from board one, luck was with you.
 
Everything you have done turned out right, opponents have given you tons of IMPS, you're riding a high wave of success.
 
In these special conditions, the Chagas Principle overrules the Law of Gravitynovetter, don't go against the good vibrations, remember the first board, you CANNOT fail, think in curves, not in straight lines,
 
Imagination is more important than knowledge, BID 7NT!!!


 
You win 10 IMPS and finish second overall, +84 IMPS.
 
In ordinary conditions, follow the law of Gravitynovetter:  Do not bid a grand slam if you cannot count 13 tricks.  A fast ball on the nose is a lot of pain.
 
In exceptional situations, forget Newton and follow the Chagas Principle, think in curves, imagine.
 
You cannot fail.

Dear Computer

Dear computer,

We have been seeing each other for more than 30 years now.  I must say that these 30 years have been quite a ride.  Playing in local clubs where nobody likes you, I had to take your side all the time. I have to confess I sometimes was tempted to side with the players who use the phrase you hate so much: "those hands", like that woman or that guy!  A phrase that infuriates you, I know.

In 30 years, you have never compromised, which is admirable, I have to admit.  True to yourself, you turned a deaf ear to all those who complained about your unusual shapes, unnatural distributions and unpredictable breaks.

What is unusual about a bridge hand? was and is your only and repeated defence.  The hands are dealt and distributed randomly, that is all.  Does Roger, who blames me all the time, think I get up at 3 in the morning to fix the hands in order to trick him personally?  I don’t even know Roger!  How would I want to mislead Susan (another one who hates me to death) personally?

But they won't listen to you, computer.  They just hate you, it is... natural for them to hate you because you are not, well... natural.

I have been down in many contracts myself, even if I have known you all those years.  I sometimes mutter some bad words, like when the Queen is doubleton offside.  I kick myself cause I know it is doubleton offside (30 years, remember...).  If only I had played AK, I would have made that slam.  So I found myself in 6♠ last week, dealt by you, my dear.

All the way during the bidding sequence, I was thinking: "In this club, we will be the only one in slam.  If I go down, we are doomed to a cold zero.  Probably the only problem will be the trump suit, trumps will possibly break 4-1."

Sorry, computer, don’t take it personally (oops!).  I repeat, 30 years of marriage (sort of ) have taught me a thing or two.  No, dear, I am not accusing you now of dealing me "those hands", but you must admit, they happen.  Not more than the probabilities, you say?  Don’t shout, dear.  Yes, dear, just probabilities.



I got a friendly diamond lead, won the Jack with the Queen in hand.  Immediately, I tossed the King of trumps on the table.  Small, small, Jack.

"Well... dear..." I started to murmur.
"I am not listening!" teeths gritting.  "Just play bridge."

I then played the trump 7, small, small, discard.  6♠ making 7, and a top board.

I must say, dear, making that slam was a consolation for all the times I went down in a slam with a 10-card trump suit, with trumps breaking 3-0.  Or when I was in 6♣, we were the only ones there, and trumps split 5-0 dealt by you!  Or when we were in 6♦ with an 8 card fit topped with AKQ (we could also have played in clubs, we had the same combination), but each minor broke 4-1; all we had to do, stated the sheet (you, dear !) was to play instead in 6♥ with trumps AKJxxx facing stiff Queen.

Shall I continue?  You are not listening, I know.  You say I am an old and unfaithful grump?

"Yes you are.  You say we have been friends all those years, that you took my side."
"Yes I did."
"I know you talk behind my back..."
"Who said that..."
"Never mind.  I know what I know.  You think I have no heart, no feelings, no..."
"Don’t cry, dear."
"I am not crying, you idiot.  Have you ever seen a computer cry?"

Karma and Dharma (or How to prevent your stupid partner from making a mistake)

Karma is a trendy word.
 
Many use it as an excuse: It’s my karma, they say, to explain that destiny has decided for them, that they can't do anything, that they are always unlucky.  If everything was written beforehand, people with the same karma should arrive at the same result, which is not the case.
 
Some, born with a silver spoon in their mouth, waste their lives, while others, born with absolutely nothing, achieve astonishing success.  Why is that?
 
Well, it is because we forgot dharma.  Karma is maybe what we receive when we are born, but dharma is what we do with it.  Thus man is always free, whatever his debut in life.
 
The bridge player also is free, whatever the cards he receives.
 
You have:



Your partner opens 1♥



You lead the 8 of hearts.



Declarer plays small in dummy, partner wins the Queen, plays the Ace and returns a heart.  You ruff and play a club: Queen from partner, Ace from declarer, who then plays AK of spades, 10 tricks.  You get almost a bottom and start the usual whining:
 
"It’s our karma.  How can I know you have the Ace of diamonds and not the Ace of clubs?"
 
Examining the score sheet, you find all sorts of results, typical of a local club game.

Contract	Score
4♠ =	- 420
4♠-1	+ 50
3♠-1	+ 50
3♠-2	+ 100
2♠ =	- 170 (you)
etc.

A "normal"’ score sheet in your club.  How is this possible?
 
All the players have the same cards, no?  How can they make 10 tricks at one table and 7 at the next?  Is Karma all mixed up?  NO. 
 
Some players invoke karma to explain their failure, others use dharma.  Let’s have a closer look.



8 of heart lead, small, Queen, small; then Ace, small, small, small.
 
Now what card must partner play to suggest a diamond return? 
 
A big heart obviously, to tell you to play back the higher suit, diamonds.  So you ruff and play a diamond to partner’s Ace who returns a 4th heart.  Declarer discards his losing diamond, you ruff, end of defense, 2 making.  How can 2 go down?  You can’t see it.
 
On the last round, you are bye and you decide to kibitz the best pair of the club.  You’re lucky: they are playing that famous 2 board.  Same bidding, same lead.
 
But, on the big heart return from his partner, signaling diamonds, the player with your cards, after ruffing, makes a play that astonishes you: he plays the King of diamonds.  His partner then makes another play that stuns you even more: he takes the King with his Ace, then cashes the Queen.
 
Defenders now have 5 tricks: 2 hearts, 2 diamonds and 1 spade.  After the diamond Queen, the 4th heart is now played.  What is he doing?  Is he really giving a ruff/sluff?
 
Declarer, witnessing all this marvelous play, cannot help being amazed: he knows very well he will get a zero, but he can only admire the beauty of this sequence of play, this dazzling and infallible logic.  He ruffs with the 10, knowing very well it is useless.  West over ruffs with the Queen, 2 down one.
 
This result has nothing to do with luck or bad luck.  The only bad luck for declarer was to play this board against those players.  The cards are the same for everybody (karma) and everyone has the possibility to play them for the best result (dharma).  Wanting to learn, you ask explanations.  You should always ask good players, they will usually answer.  If you don’t ask, they will not tell you.
 
"Why the king of diamonds?"
"Since my partner has signaled diamonds, I play the King so he doesn’t make a mistake, to force him to cash the Ace at the second diamond play. That way, declarer cannot discard his losing diamond on the 4th heart."
"And why did you take the King with the Ace?"
"To prevent my partner from making a mistake.  As I have AQJ10, it is easy for me to take the King and play the Ace.  If I play the 10, who knows what can happen?"
"And why a 4th heart, and not a club?"
"My partner passed on 1. With the King of diamonds and Ace or King of clubs, he would have made a negative double.  So partner doesn’t have a club honour.  Declarer has redoubled to show a good hand, so he has AK of clubs.  My club Queen is dead.  The only hope then is that partner has the spade Queen.  It is not certain, obviously, but it is the only chance.  If it works, good for us; if it doesn’t work, we couldn’t beat 2."
"Thank you very much, it is very clear.  So, if I understand well, playing defense is mainly preventing partner form making a mistake.  I have to think for him?"
"Yes.  You know Murphy’s Law: if something can go wrong, it will.  If partner has the chance to make a mistake, I must prevent him from doing so."
 
The next time you play bridge, instead of looking around fearing your bad karma, think of preventing your partner from making a mistake.
 
Think about karma and dharma.  When you look at your hand, you see your karma.  You can leave it as is, and then complain.  Or you can use your dharma: play your cards the best way you can.
 
Good players don’t care about karma. They believe only in dharma.

Extraneous Factors

You have:



While you are still counting your points, your partner opens 1♠!

You have learned to stay calm when big hands occur, so you bid 2♥.  No problem, it is forcing.  Partner responds 3♣, conventional, a brilliant treatment from Eric Kokish, the premier bridge coach and bidding wizard in the world.  Here are all the responses possible when opener has a heart fit.

4♥ = 5-4 in majors, 2-2 in minors, no Ace no King in minors, so you know right away if you have 2 losers somewhere. Quick, informative, economical.
4♣/4♦ = splinter with 4 card heart fit
3♥ = fit, not the 4♥, nor the 4♣/4♦ hand
3♣ = can be natural, 5 cards, good hand or 3 card heart fit with a singleton in a minor.

After 3♣, responder bids 3♦ to enquire.  Responses :

3♥ = heart fit, singleton ♣
3♠ = heart fit, singleton ♦
3N = 5 card club suit, no heart fit, good hand

Here is the sequence we had.



As responder, your hand is getting better and better.  This ♣ singleton is good news.

We continue:



Now you know enough as responder, so you go for RKCB.  Opener shows 2 without the queen, heart is trumps obviously.  Time to stop and count.

Opener has Ace of hearts, Ace of diamonds and singleton club.  That is only 8 points. She could have Jack of spades, Jack of hearts, 10 points.  Thus she needs Queen of diamonds to get to 12 points.  If she doesnt have one of the Jacks in majors, she should have the Jack of diamonds.  Or she could have the useless Jack of clubs.

With the double fit and all the aces, you are able to count to 13 tricks: 5 spades, 5 hearts, AK of diamonds and Ace of clubs, 13 tricks.  But… one of the majors could break 4-1 and you don’t have 13 tricks anymore.  So you should play in one major in order to be able to establish the other major if it breaks 4-1.  Which major will you choose?
With AKQ in spades, partner is a favorite to hold Jxxxx in spades.
You know she has Axx in hearts, but does she have AJx?

You are still there, thinking, counting, trying to take the optimal decision.

Are there other factors you should consider?

Well yes, extraneous factors in fact, but of paramount importance.  Who is your partner?
As a matter of fact, you are playing with your wife.  Not important, you say?  Think again!

I had a partner once who, in a slam forcing sequence, saw his wife passed 4nt.  Considerate as he was, he managed to make only 10 tricks, so she would not feel bad.  When he told me that story, he added: I would not be able to do that today, I would get blasted by her after that for treating her as inferior.

So you are playing with your wife and, well, I must add another twist: today is her birthday!
Still not important, you say?  Very, very, very important, I say.

So what do you do?  Do you adopt your usual manly attitude and bid 7♥, on the principle that you are a better player than she is?  What if you go down???

Or you'll let her play 7♠, as a gift for her birthday and a mark of confidence?

I bid 7♠.  She was understandably startled, as from her first bid, she never knew I had a spade fit.

Did they live happily ever after, you wonder? Yes. All majors behaved and she scored 2210. Happy Birthday!

The Big Cat With 99 Lives

How do you become a great card player?  Well, firstly, bad bidding will surely help; another good way is to forget what you play, and end up in ridiculous contracts.  But, as we say in French, "le ridicule ne tue pas".

A third way is for the opponents to let themselves get hypnotised by a big cat, just because he is a big cat.  I have seen Boris Baran survive so many impossible contracts, that I have come to think of him as a great big cat, not with 9 lives, but rather with 99 lives.  Boris Baran has big claws and radiating presence: when he sits at the bridge table, he comes to play.   He is also known to have psychic powers, and he is thus able to hypnotise opponents (who want to be hypnotised, by the way, like the poor little bird in the eye of the cat, or the deer at night that just jumps in front of your car).  Some victims want to stay victims (it is easier).

In the quarter finals of the Canadian National Team Championships 1998, I witnessed this hand.



The auction:



Some explanations. Double showed a four-card major and a five-card minor suit.  2♣ was Stayman, and 2♠ said "I have four spades and an invitational hand, or four spades with a long minor suit and a weak hand."

On 2♠, opener passes with a minimum and four little spades or three good spades (KQx); with two spades and a minimum, opener bids 2NT; responder then passes with the invitational hand with four spades or bids his long minor suit with the weak hand, to play.

If opener has a maximum and four spades, he bids 3♠; responder then bids 4♠ with the invitational hand and passes with the weak hand.  If opener has a maximum without four spades, he bids 3♣, artificial; responder with the invitational hand can now bid 3NT; if responder has the weak hand with a long minor, he passes 3♣ or corrects to 3♦, to play.  Really a very nice treatment (by Eric Kokish, I think).

On 2♠, Mark Molson alerted on his side of the panel; Boris bid 3♣ (natural !? - he had forgotten his agreement on this sequence) and did not alert.  When the auction was over, Boris woke up and said that he should have alerted 3♣; West then said he would have doubled 3♣, Molson then said he would have bid 3NT anyway, and that was that.  Boris then told West, the 3♣ doubler, that he was on lead; West then woke up himself and realised he had doubled 3♣ to tell himself to lead clubs, which he did.  And the "Big Cat with 99 Lives" examined his options.

On a Diamond lead, there would be no story.  How do you become a bad defender?  Firstly, not listening to the bidding will surely help.  If West had asked what  3♣ was, he would have learned that Boris (who had forgotten his agreement, remember) had bid naturally, so he would have lead the unbid suit, Diamonds.  But...

On the small club lead, Boris looked a long time at dummy, probably trying to figure out how many lives he had already spent playing and making impossible contracts.  Could he survive yet again and fall on his feet?  Well, the lead seemed friendly, Boris ducked in dummy and now the bad news: East discarded a diamond. 

Count your tricks: two hearts, one diamond and three clubs equals six tricks!!  You need three more; where will they come from?  Boris won in hand, played a club to the king, and called for a heart.  East played low and Boris inserted the 10, what else?  HE NEEDS TRICKS!  The 10 won, he is up to seven tricks : three hearts, one diamond and three clubs.  Boris now thought for a long time, a very long time, toyed with the King of spades, then the nine, then the King again.  He decided on the nine of spades and ran it!  East won with the queen, and came back  with the queen of hearts.

With the heart return, you could sense the Big Cat starting to breathe a little: he had a chance to put his claws on yet another impossible contract, just because he is a thinking cat.  Boris won and played the king of spades, ducked all around (long pause by West).   Boris then ducked a diamond to East, who came back a third heart.  Boris won (West discarding a club), played a diamond to the Ace, and announced he would endplay West, making three.  The whole hand:



The position after the ace of diamond (lead in dummy, two tricks lost so far):



A club to the ace and another club put West in hand for a beautiful stepping-stone ending:



West has to play a spade to dummy for the ninth trick of this impossible contract: two spades, three hearts, one diamond and three clubs.  The defence made two spades, one diamond and one club.

The Big Cat withdrew his claws and smiled at me: "Beautiful hand", he said. East commented that Boris had no play from the start! Boris laughed like a kid.