A human skeleton has scores of bones, but to succeed at bridge you need three extras:a backbone to cope with adversity (you will meet plenty), a funny bone so you can laugh at your mistakes (you will make many), and a wishbone for times when you must hope for amagical lie of the cards.
Today’s North-South zoomed into a thin slam. When North bid three spades, South would have done better to try for slam with a cue bid of four hearts, leaving any further move to his partner.
West led a trump, and South counted only 11 tricks even if the clubs produced four tricks. He lacked the entries for a dummy reversal, and to win a second heart trick required a miracle.
South wished for a different miracle. He took the ace of trumps, led a diamond to the ace and ruffed a diamond, hoping a defender might hold K-Q-x. When East-West played low, South led a low heart: three, nine, queen.
East led a second trump, and declarer won and cashed the ace of hearts. He took the K-A of clubs and led a third club from dummy, and when East followed low, South . . . finessed with the 10. West discarded, so South threw dummy’s last heart on the queen of clubs, ruffed his last heart with dummy’s last trump, and won the last two tricks with trumps.
South used up his wishbone for the entire year, but he had to assume that East had four clubs as well as three trumps. A 3-3 club break wouldn’t help South.
Let’s hope East-West’s funny bones were in working order.