Tales of the Giant Crab – 5

As declarer Walt invented the ‘Crab coup’. His contract was four spades. He was on the board having lost three tricks. Although he knew West was void in hearts, instead of merely calling for dummy’s trump and claiming, he called for for the ace of hearts and ruffed it with the ace of spades. The symmetry of ruffing one ace with another was too attractive for him to resist. By doing so he established a trump trick for West. To my knowledge this type of self uppercut has been executed successfully only once.

As he gained in experience in life and bridge, Walt formulated his three universal rules of life. They are:

1 There is no such thing as a good bridge player.

2 Everybody cheats

3. Cows don’t move.

The last I checked he was still convinced of the truth of the first two, but  while we were driving by a pasture once one day there seemed to be a cow walking! Shocked, he shrieked “nooo!” And hid his face in his hands. He still refuses to admit he actually saw a cow that moved

Walt’s universal law of bridge is, ‘double and lead trumps.’ He showed his full confidence in this law when he doubled three diamonds’ without hesitation and led his trump stack–the singleton king of diamonds. He felt he was vindicated when it proved to be the only lead to hold declarer to four.