Silk

Hi all

I’ve got a knee slapper for you. How do you call a tiny psychic running away from the police?

Answer at the end…

This deal is from a random night at Quick Tricks, I played with James, a British bio-informatics student studying for a semester at UC Berkeley. We had a good night. South (all red) opened a weak NT and got to play there.

West starts with Ace and King of (East showing out the second round!) and South won the Jack with the Queen. So West has four tricks hanging in the air like Damocles’ sword. South attacked the suit but West smoothly inserts the King to dummy’s Ace.

Declarer probed for vibrations with the Jack but when East (James) unperturbed followed small he went up with the Ace. Another to dummy won the trick, effectively shutting off the suit. The Ten of and South had all his antennas turned to James. A silky small one…

Declarer suddenly got the jitters, he remembered my Jack as suit preference. Too much, he just couldn’t let me win my stiff Queen of and went up with the King. Well, I didn’t have the Queen, James did. Down one was the result.

James correctly ducked the one round and his smooth ducks on the probes deserve praise. It’s not that spectacular a deal, but James and I were beating the defensive drum in the same rhythm. No giveaway pauses or disruptions in tempo to give declarer an edge.

The psychic? …. A small medium at large!