A Taste of Egg

It took me until the very last board of the session to get egg all over my face. Let me tell you how it came about. Sometimes the worst defence in the world can get you the best results and so it was for our opponents, who defended about as badly as they could and scored a resounding top.

Board 26 from Thursday 30/08/2018
Dealer E All Vul

	T4 43 AT64 QT954
J732 QT2 Q3 KJ63		KQ9 KJ9865 92 A8
	A865 A7 KJ875 72

As East I opened 1H. South doubled, 2NT (Truscott) from West, a slight overbid, and I also overbid in calling 4H. Awful bidding but the defence was much worse.

South led the ace of spades and North followed with the four. South then led the eight of diamonds which North won with the ace. North now led back ... the ten of spades. I asked them about their leads and signals but got no satisfaction!

With four certain losers staring me in the face I had been given a reprieve. I took the chance to try and dispose of my second diamond loser and played ace of clubs followed by a finesse of the jack. South had doubled my opening bid after all. But it lost to North's queen and North now did lead back a diamond. South won her king and for want of anything better, led another spade, which North ruffed.

I will leave it to you to decide whether this defence was quite brilliant or otherwise. But the defence at other tables had proved to be inadequate as well, because after the reasonable seven of clubs lead NS had not managed to cash up their tricks when South was in with the ace of trumps. That should have been easy enough: cash ace of spades, get a signal from North (a discouraging one, whatever signals you play) and then, heart in mouth, switch to a diamond.

How would you feel if you were down THREE in a 4H game that many others were making? As for the defence, have you decided whether it was brilliant or otherwise? If I tell you that this top board made up 9% of the opponent's overcall final score what would you infer?