Page 8-Sunday, November 13, 1977-The Michigan Daily

bridge

(Continued from Page 6)
club king, and Steve had the club ace,
the only way to give Frank the lead
was if he had a singleton club, then,
after Steve cashed his club ace, he
would play a small club which Frank
would ruff, and he would return a
spade which Steve could ruff.
Convinced his analysis was correct,
Steve dutifully played the ace and out
a club, won on the board with the king.
Declarer now led dummy's diamond
jack, and passed it to Steve. Steve won
his ace, and stopped to think again.lHe
knew declarer still held the spade king,
and either 5 diamonds and 2 hearts, or 6
diamonds and 1 heart. If he had only 1
heart, it would have to be the ace (if
Frank had the ace he would have
signaled for a heart lead), and Steve's
lead would make no difference. But if
he had 2 hearts, it was crucial for Steve
not to lead a heart, giving East a free
finesse. Appropriately, Steve led a club,
and was duly rewarded when East
queen of hearts lost to Frank's king for
the setting trick.
"I'm afraid you- misplayed it, my
friend," Steve said, patting East on the*
back. "Instead of leading that trump
from dummy, you should have taken
the opportunity to take the heart
finesse.''
The score sheet proved Steve correct,
since the contract had been identical at
every table, but had made about as of-
ten as it had gone down.
"Well, at least several others played
as I did," moaned East.
Steve, meanwhile, had sauntered
over to the scoring table where they had
already tallied nearly all the scores.
Frank and Steve had a fantastic game,'
but so did Jim. Those rumors about how
well he was doing were apparently true,
and with one score remaining, Steve
and Frank held a slim one-point lead.
EVERYONE WAS awaiting the out-
come of the final score, when the

director announced that Jim and Jeff
had taken so long on one hand that they
couldn't play the second hand of the set,
and had taken a fate play on the board.
The hand, it turned out, was the one
Steve had just defended so well, and'
Jim's chances looked poor. Even if he
could defend as well as Steve had, and
even if his opponent misplayed the hand
as Steve's had, he would still only tie-
Steve and Frank on the board, and"
would lose the tournament by a point.
Steve was confident as he pulled up a
chair alongside Jeff to watch the last-
hand.
As they picked up their cards, it was
obvious that Jim was uncomfortable.
Kibitzers always made him nervous,
and with Steve glaring at him from
across the table, he-became so flustered
he dropped his cards in his lap. His face
red with emarrassment, he picked up
his cards and counted them.
"Eleven, twelve, thirteen. All there,"
he announced, breathing a sigh of
relief.
The bidding went just as it had at
Steve's table, and when Jim led the
spade queen, I thought I was about to
see a replay. But, when Jim ruffed a
spade at trick two, he introduced a
bizarre variation-he underled the club
ace! Declarer won the king, and
making the same mistake as Steve's
opponent, led the diamond jack instead
of a heart. -Jim won the ace, and. to
everyone's surprise led yet another
small club. Jeff won with his queen, and
returned a spade which Jim ruffed. Jim
led his last trump, and East was going.
to have to give up a heart at the end for
down two, and victory for Jim and Jeff.
"But how could you have"guessed to
play the clubs like that?" Steve shouted
after Jim had led his last trump.-
"Guessing had nothing to do with it,",
replied Jeff, who was known for his
brilliant post mortems. "It was all a
matter of elementary card reading," he

continued. "Jim knew I had only five
spades, since I would have rebid them
with six, so that left declarer with
three. Declarer must also have held at
least six diamonds for his bid, so he had
four cards in hearts and clubs. Since I
signaled for a club lead, and not a
heart, he can place declarer with heart
ace. But it is unlikely that the ace is stif-
ffor two -reasons. First, with five cards
in both major suits, I might well have
pushed on to.3 hearts, or even 4 hearts.
Second, if declarer's ace is stiff, then I
hold king and queen of hearts, and would
probably have signaled for a heart
lead rather than a club, especially since.
I had no idea partner held the club ace.
Therefore, it is extremely-likely that
declarer holds the ace-queen of hearts,
and two clubs. Now, let's turn to my,
hand. I have the ace and jack of spades,
if I'd had the spade king I'd have led it.
at the second trick, and the king and
jack of hearts. That gives me nine poin-
ts, but I opened the bidding, and I need
12 or so for that, so where are the rest?
Clearly not in diamonds, so I must have
the queen, and probably the jack of
clubs. Now that he is playing double-
dummy, Jim knows that he can put me

in with the second round of clubs to give
his a second spade ruff, but he can only
give me the lead by underleading the
ace of clubs twice. It's really quite
straightforward, Steve. Didn't you
defend the same way?"
S TEVE IGNORED the comment and
turned angrily to Jim, who had been
silent throughout Jeff's analysis.
"And that is how you reasoned it
out?" he asked incredulously.
"Well, uh," Jim-stuttered, "not, uh,
exac-"
Just then, one of the kibitzers inter-
rupted.
"Excuse me," he said, tapping Jim
on the shoulder. "But you dropped a
card on the floor."
Jim, who looked at his hand, and saw
that he had one less card than dummy,
reached down and picked up the club
ace from the floor.
"Sorry, partner," he said in a soft
voice. "If I'd picked that card up when I
recovered the rest of my hand we
probably could have beatenit another
-trick. I thought I had counted thirteen
cards, but you know how bad I am with
numbers."

N\

I

I

IL

film


Wilson

(Continued from Page 7)
ping out as a medic to France in World
War I, Wilson wrote the following to F.
Scott Fitzgerald, a friend from Prin-
ceton.
"I am quite unable to tell you what ef-
feet the war at close quarters has on a
person of my temperament; I have
never got any nearer to it than the
Detroit state fairgrounds, where I am
asociated on the errand of mercy with
the sorriest company of yokels that
ever qualified as skillful plumbers, or
an even less considerable eminence,
receive A.B. degrees from the Univer-
sity of Michigan." Fortunately for
Wilson, he didn't have to mingle with
French..

the masses too often; the letter is
datelined Grosse Pointe Farms, the af-
fluent Detroit suburb where he stayed
with friends of his family.
Amusing .as this book is, one salient
question remains: is it worth its hefty
$20 price tage? After all the letters are
heavily edited and nothing of substance
is revealed about Wilson's life.
For the serious scholar, this collec-
tion of details and thoughts about
Wilson's work in progress, is in-
valuable. But the general reader would
no doubt find a biography more
useful-unless he just wants something
for the coffee table.

(Continued from Page 6)
range seems limited in effectiveness to
playing assorted nasties and punks. In-
stead of rooting for his character's do-
your-own-thing spunkiness, I kept wan-
ting to take a poke at him.
The Last American Hero would
probably fit in nicely as a made-for-TV
movie. It works quite well within its
range, but please, no intimations of
immortality.
4. McCabe and Mrs. Miller.
(1971)-Again, a question of degree.
McCabe isn't a bad film at all, but my
God, one of the all-time greats? I cringe
at the preponderance of critics who
persist in beating the hymnal drum
exulting this leisurely, semi-engrossing
morality play as "one of the truly
povotal films of all time," "the most
important film of the 70s" and other
such hosannahs.
THIS STUDY OF CORRUPTION of
small-time free enterprise in the
Frontier West is a reasonably enter-
taining Robert Altman work (which is
minimal praise coming from this cor-
ner). McCabe features the usual set of
wonderfully rich supporting perfor-
mances by the talented Altman rep
company, but the title leads are
colorlessly written and sluggishly acted'
(by Warren Beatty and Julie Christie).
And try as I may, I can't dredge up
anything primally definitive in either
theme or technique, save Altman's
overlapping (and overpraised) sound,
track.

5. Murder on the Orient Express
(1974)-Another woebegone product
from the ubiquitous Sidney Lumet, this
lugubrious film suffers from literal as
well as figurative immobility. As the
famed. Istanbul-to-Calais train sits
stagnated in a snow drift, Agatha
Christie's supersleuth Hercule Poirot
sets about unravelling the mysteries of
an on-board murder of an American
gangster-a murder for which any of a
dozen different suspects may be
responsible. Culturists raved over
Orient's "Exotic, romantic" flavor;
hmmm. Perhaps Dame Agatha had the
knack for, atmospheric mystique, but
Lumet certainly doesn't.
What, dear reader, could be more
unexotic than watching a dozen or so
rich, WASP-ish dilletantes sitting on a
stalled train doing their assigned guest-
star shticks, then lounging woodenly
while Poirot (Albert Finney in a
shamefully self-indulgent carridature)
yammers away incessantly at them?
Orient's only good performance comes
from Richard Widmark as 'the
gangster, and he gets offed early on
(thespian jealousy, perhaps?) Ingrid
Bergman won a supporting actress
Oscar for her bit role, then asserted
with public vigorthat she didn't deser-
ve it. Such confession would have been
good for all the other souls involved in
this inert work. -
Good grief, my space is up and I'm
only two thirds through my list. This
may run to three installments-see you
next week.

(Continued from Page 7) sense of hopelessness or submission in
said is not trivial. Moreover the author her. Rather the word implies a crisis
fTrces a rethinking of the connotations which must be overcome.
surrounding much used terms such as Like our own world, The Women's
love, despair. Is love a verb, an action Room functions, on the oft unpopular
to be taken or an object, a thing to be concept that each of us, ultimately, is
given? Mira believes the latter. And responsible for our own destiny. The
despair does not create the expected past may set the scene, determine the
social conditions under which we as
- Fast cooks like to use cream women function. But French quite
cheese, melted over very low heat or clearly considers that no excuse for us,
over hot water, as a sauce for to avoid grappling with the present.
vegetables. To thin the sauce, add-
two tablespoons of milk when you use
a 3-ounce .package of the cream SheriHi/e is an LSA junor

s~unday mdtazine
Susan Ades Jay Levin
Co-editors
Elaine Fletcher Tom O'Connell
Associate Editors
Cover photo: "A tree grows on State Street"
by Daily staff photographer-Alan Bilinsky

inside:

Film. An
assembly of
overrated flicks

Donald Hall:
Kicking up his
heels in N.H.

Books: Edmr
Wilson, mai
.1letters

{,


Supplement to The Michigan Daily

Ann Arbor, Michigan-Sunday, November 13, 1977