Hi all,
The tan I acquired in Mexico in February is gone, I’m back to my pale white self. Highlights from this year’s trip are Alux in Playa del Carmen, heavenly roasted pork everywhere, meeting mi novia’s loved ones, live music and beers in La Negrita Cantina in Merida, seeing fireworks in Guadalajara, tequila in Tequila, cenotes and much more delicious pork. Is it obvious I am a total and absolute fan of the Yucatan kitchen?
Bridge wise I’ve been busy, Pairs with René, HOK Patton with Kees & Erik, bringing home gigantic chocolate bunnies from Easter bridge, flirting with Viking Precision again and more.
Here’s a cute deal from the Patton series at HOK. The number of poor decisions my LHO made is quite .. staggering.
West leads the 
7 and this is what I see:
That lead has the smell of a doubleton. With 4 losers in the pointy suits I will have to tackle the trump suit for no losers. I duck the lead and East wins the Queen. Next comes the King of and another for West. A tinier hits the table and the high-low confirms my original suspicions. I rise with the Ace and cross to my hand with a .
It’s “trump tackling time” (copyright and patent pending).
Because of the nice spots there is a layout that works for me: King-doubleton on my left and Ten-third on my right. My Queen of gets covered with the King to dummy’s Ace. Now I’m just going to run the 9 of and I’ll get home with 9 tricks.
Nice dream .. East decides to show out on the second round of ! This is the position:
My chances of making are shot to hell. Damage control. I let the 9 run to West’s Ten and she goes in the tank. I expect her to return a trump, but she surprises me with a instead. Now it’s easy, I pitch a from dummy and ruff with my Jack of . With my 5 of I take the hook against her 7 of trumps and then the 8 of kills East in a black suit squeeze. My holding proves to take another 3 tricks.
This was the full deal:
West could have ducked the first trump, the second trump, or played back a trump .. everything leads to my defeat. Instead she gave me a finger by giving me a ruff ‘n sluff and then I took the whole arm in a blaze of glory of squeezy awesomeness.
I’ve watched a couple of episodes of Black Mirror, leaving me in varying degrees of unease and unsettlement. But .. the song below (featuring in multiple episodes) touches me every time I hear it.