(This article first appeared in the HCL International Tournament Bulletin of 6th November. We are, with the kind permission of Dr. Paranjape, reproducing it here with a few minor edits which we felt would give Pune readers a little more flavor. All errors, naturally would be ours.)
On the afternoon of Friday the 3"'November,after lunch, I overheard an animated conversation of two souls. Perhaps, only one of them was a pure soul, the other, both the Body & Soul. "Let me please play just one round", the former was pleading. I love the HCL tournament. I am keen to play in it, I have not had a chance to appear here", the pure soul clarified. "Nobody will come to know", the pure soul continued.
B&S protested that he wasn't going to entertain any such request, but the soul seems to have had the final say as the play on the following deal shows.
As he strolled to his West sit for the seventh round, an overpowering desire to sleep took over the B&S. He remembers everyone picking up their cards, but not what happened on the deal. We gathered more details of the proceedings from their North-South opponents.
North opened a strong 1♣ and North-South landed in a 3NT game rather than a Heart partial or game after the following bidding sequence
West North East South
1♣ 2♣ 3♥
P 3NT All Pass
East led a small club to dummy's 5 and West's Q. As declarer won with the king he was pondering about how to bring home this almost hopeless contract. He had noticed that the club queen had appeared on his right, but that gave him little solace.
With no side suit entry into dummy, he was wondering how to make 8, or even 7 tricks unless the ♥ QJ fell doubleton. He hit upon an ingenious plan. If East happened to have an honor doubleton holding in the heart suit, he could perhaps duck the first heart into the East hand and then, on the 2nd round, overtake the ♥ King with the ♥ Ace, allowing him to run the heart suit.
Accordingly, he led a small ♥2 from his hand. East played the ♥5 and inserted the ♥8 from dummy and West blinked! He went into a huddle, his cards shook a bit and, out of his hand popped the ♥3.
Once, he saw what he had done, West immediately apologized. "Sorry partner, I just dozed off", he murmured. East could not contain his fury. "What is wrong with you?" he shouted angrily. "Did you have too many Rasgullas for lunch? Have you taken your tablets today? Why are you wasting my time giving away cheap tricks to the opponents in an MP game?" He went on and on.
In the meantime, North realised that his only chance of making the contract had disappeared with
that small Heart played by West. The play went on and the contract went down 1.
The West player was apologizing profusely to his partner for that 'misplay' of his. "Something came over me", West protested. His partner, however, seemed to be in no mood to condone his taking the contract one shy when he could have taken it down two.
Had West won trick two, North would likely have made his contract by winning whatever return (playing the king if a diamond was played, or playing a low diamond to the king later if a spade was backed), and overtaking the heart King with the ♥A, cash 5 Heart tricks, 2 spades, a club and a diamond.
Well, we now know what that something was. It was the Rueful Rabbit's soul making an appearance In
the HCL event!
(The North, who thought of this ingenious method to make the contract? He was our very own Rajendra Gokhale. Truly something for all of us to learn from - Eds)
(Dr. Prakash Paranjpe was the editor of the HCL bulletin. You can read the bulletin in which this article appeared and all other bulletins, by clicking here)