The Energy when you connect with your partner

I was playing with Francine Cimon today.  It is always a joy to watch her play dummy.  She has both great technique and she can also manufacture tricks when she needs to.  But when you and partner are on the same wavelength on bidding and particularly on defense then that can be uplifting.  It feels like you have had a jolt of energy.  Everything is fun and easy and at the end you just feel, well good.  Have you had times like that?

Here is a pretty hand we defended today with a familiar theme.

Dealer: North Vul: EW	Francine ♠ K2 ♥ 109873 ♦ Q108 ♣ 984
West ♠ Q108754 ♥ AQJ6 ♦ 64 ♣ Q		East ♠ A96 ♥ K54 ♦ J52 ♣ KJ62
	Linda ♠ J3 ♥ 2 ♦ AK973 ♣ A10753

Francine made a great lead on the hand the ♥10.  From the auction she may have worked out that I was short in the majors and could easily have a heart ruff.  Declarer had a problem.  Without a miracle in the spade suit he had four losers two diamonds, a club and a spade.  He decided his best shot was to see if I would duck the club.  He won the heart in dummy with the ♥ K and then led a small club from the dummy.  A club play at trick two certainly felt like a swindle of some sort.  Declarer might have had a club void but the play was going to net him a lot more if he had the stiff queen.  That seemed the most likely holding and the worse risk.  So I rose on the ♣A.  I played the ♦9 to Francine’s♦Q and she gave me a heart ruff.  I cashed a top diamond for the setting trick.  When declarer misguessed spades he was down 2.  In the other room they played in 3♠ and when Francine’s hand failed to lead a heart on an even more informative auction and my hand ducked the ♣A they made five.