Hi all
I have a story about green parakeets. Some night earlier this week I was gazing out of my window and I could swear I saw this green flash. It took my attention and I kept watching. Turns out (after exercising some Google muscle) it is a well documented phenomenon. Sometime in the 70’s pet owners set free their boy & girl parakeets in Amsterdam. Those freebirds (cue Lynyrd Skynyrd) had a lot of little baby birds and now there are flocks of them throughout the city. London has a similar thing. I spot them regularly now, flying over canals, in between buildings, nesting in the big trees or in the parks. Pretty and awesome.
I have to confess my Bridge Big adventures sound very successful all the time, but truth is slightly different. Especially in the last couple of weeks I’ve been bleeding IMPs left and right. My gains have completely evaporated and now I’m struggling not to enter the deep red end. René tells me I still do pretty good, considering the caliber of players lurking around. Every day there are top level players from all over the globe.
Here’s a nice little deal where I picked up a nugget or two.
- Penalty
LHO starts with the (unhelpful) Jack of 
and this is what I see:
Not the coldest of contracts so to say.
I win the lead and start on trumps, a low one to the 9. East wins it with the Jack and switches to a 
. LHO winning the Queen. Back comes another and I pick up my original plan: trumps. Low to the Ten wins the trick. So my LHO started with AQ-4th. Can I defuse that dirty little bomb?
Yes, sir!
I run dummy’s Ten of and LHO wins it with the Ace. Not wanting to open up any other suit he passively returns his last (breaking 3-3). This is the position now:
I put the King of on the table and West wins it with his Ace. He switches back to for my Ace while I discard a from dummy. Still one trump too many in dummy to pull off a coup. I ruff my King of in dummy while West sheds a . Ruffing a winner instead of a loser just feels nicer, I bet the Hideous Hog would approve. I cross back to my hand with the Queen of and the coup is complete with lead in South:
West just gets his Ace of trumps, I take 8 and €3.80.
