It was half way through the club’s Saturday night duplicate and hard luck Louis was happy with his Slam contract. If the red suit’s ingenuity works, he’ll make the slam, which Louis knew was a 75% offer. However, both tricks were defeated, and Louis was once again lamenting his terrible fate.
Lucky Larry played the same contract after his opening club lead. He won by ace of dummy and drew trump in round two that ended in dummy. He nailed the king of clubs, crossed his hand with a trump, and ruffed the rest of his club. Larry led the low heart from the dummy and just covered the former’s three with an eight. He won and it was Larry’s twelfth move.
How could he take such a chance? Larry wasn’t taking any chances – he was playing a certain trick. If West won by 10 hearts, he would have to play the red suit or give a rough-sluff. Any of those plays will give Larry his twelfth move. If East had played 10 instead of three, Larry would have won and easily developed a third heart move. Nothing could have gone wrong.