Drumroll for “the Hog”

It was January 5^th the twelfth day of Christmas, Epiphany, the end of this festive period.   I am having a quiet day today.  I am curled up with a book.  But it is one of my very favorite books, Bridge in the Menagerie.  I am reminded of reading the book more years ago than I care to say.  I loved all of the characters in the menagerie, the Hideous Hog, the Rueful Rabbit, Walter the Walrus, Papa the Greek and all the others.  The only recurring female in the menagerie is Molly the Mule who is rather stubborn.  I recognize some of the characteristics of these fictional bridge players in my bridge friends and even in myself but my bridge acquaintances are another cast of characters.  But, of course, I don’t have Mollo’s skill with humor to bring them to life.

As I reread this wonderful book which is finally being brought back into print this March, I once more am amazed at the humor and the lovely hands.  The book is as good as I remember it, in fact it is better.

Here is what I am reading right now.  H.H. is the Hideous Hog who wants to play all hands.  He plays with great skill but also loves a swindle.  The Rueful Rabbit is not a very skillful player but he has a way of stumbling into brilliant plays.  He is of course one of H.H.’s favorite partners.

Drum roll, please……………………..

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H.H. paused long enough to empty a couple of glasses of Batard Montrachet, noted the approach of Crepes Suzette, and turned to me: ‘While I do justice to these superb crepes,’ he said, ‘you might like to tell them about the hand that so thrilled you the other day, that fourth-dimensional three notrump with the Rabbit.  I would not impose on you in the ordinary way,’ he added, ‘but I know how carefully you watch your waistline.  And quite right, too, of course.  People eat far too much these days.’

Who Has What?

The hand about which H.H. was so exultant had come up the previous week.  I was sitting between the Rabbit, who dealt, and his right-hand opponent, the Doctor.

Dealer: North

Neither vul.

 

Against 3NT, the usual contract when H.H. was at the table, the Doctor opened the ♣ 4.  East, a Sound Performer from the provinces, who played straight down the middle, went up with the king and the Hog followed with the ten.  The sound performer returned the ♣ 3 to declarer’s knave and West’s queen.  A small heart was deposited from dummy.

The Doctor surveyed the situation.  What, he asked himself, was East’s club holding?  His return of the three proclaimed a four-card suit.  That meant that the Hog, too, had four, which in turn implied that his ten and knave — played to the first two tricks — must be falsecards.  It looked very much, in fact, as if the Hog’s clubs were J1098, leaving East with AK63.

It was obvious, of course, that H.H. could not have the ace, for holding AJ10x he would have naturally taken the king with the ace making sure of two club tricks, if not three, instead of allowing the defense to win three to his one.

Expecting to get the contract at least two down, the Doctor led his ♣ 7 to put partner in with the ace.  The Hog threw on it dummy’s ♦ A and won the trick in his own hand with the nine.  Then he produced the ♣ A — to the stupefaction of East and West alike — and discarded on it the ♦ K from dummy.  Six diamonds followed in quick succession.

This was the deal:

 

            

 

‘I have no wish to make too much of it,’ observed the Hog, chewing the last of the crepes.  ‘Brilliance comes to me naturally and I can claim no credit for it.  The point I want to emphasize is not so much the play itself as its smooth execution.  A pause, a moment’s hesitation and all would have been lost.  If the good Doctor had caught me in the act of thinking, he would have diagnosed at once that I had something to think about.  Then, one look at dummy and he would have realized that I was facing a hopeless unblocking problem.

‘It is sometimes more important to play quickly than to play well,’ he added sagely.

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So welcome back to the Hideous Hog, the Rabbit, Papa and all the others.  The twelve drummers are drumming. 

And we are at the end of our Christmas adventure.