Cinderella

Dalia was so furious that you could almost see smoke coming off her ears. She had left her house at 8AM to make sure she would get to the Bridge Club early (the game starts at 10AM). Then she waited at the bus stop for 40 minutes because the full busses passed by without stopping. Then, when she finally managed to get on a bus – it got stuck in the middle of the road. And when she rushed down to get out of the bus, someone stepped on her heel and tore her shoe.

Dalia took a taxi and managed to arrive at the club 5 minutes before 10AM, with only one shoe, barely breathing, only to find out ...

...That her partner phoned a few minutes ago to announce that she is not coming: "Yes, she called and said that the guy she had called to fix the refrigerator arrived at 9:30 instead of 8:00", I told her and explained further how the conversation with her partner went: "You know how it is with technicians... You can never trust them to be in time", she said and hung up...

Dalia exploded: "Really? What about her!? Can she be trusted? The technician was late, but at least he showed up, while she didn't show up at all!"

But with all the bad luck she had that day, Dalia got the most angry with ... me!

"Why is Dalia mad at you?” one of the players asked. "Because I called her Cinderella", I answered innocently and added with a smile: "How else should I call someone who arrives at the club with one shoe?”

Dalia wanted to go home but I didn't let her: "Don't move! I will find you another witch...err... a nice partner to play with", I said.

And indeed, I managed to match her with someone nice to play with. And I also patched her broken shoe with tape: “Here, as good as new. With such a wonderful shoe, the prince will find you in no time, Cinderella", I pushed on, annoyingly.

Dalia finally calmed down and her luck seemed to change: All morning she got hands full of points. She didn't just get great hands, she played them well too. Like this difficult hand for instance:



West lead a Club. Declarer has two losers: a Diamond and a Heart. Most declarers who bid the slam went down one after they pulled trump and hoped for Diamonds to split 3-3.

Dalia managed to improve her chances:

She ruffed the lead and played ♦A, a Diamond to the ♦Q and a third Diamond from dummy. If Diamonds were 3-3 – the ♦K wins and she could pull trumps and enjoy the fourth Diamond.

But here, with the 4-2 split, East thought what to do: If he discards – Dalia will win with the ♦K and then ruff her 4th Diamond with the ♠J in dummy, losing just one Heart trick in the end.

Therefore he ruffed the third Diamond, and continued with another Club. Dalia ruffed the club, played one round of trumps, continued with the ♦K from her hand (discarding a Heart from dummy), then continued with ♥AK and ruffed her Heart loser in dummy to make her 12th trick.

"Bravo, Cinderella!", shouted her partner (everyone were looking from the other tables), and Dalia raised her first smile for the day.