Writing this column allows me to meet and occasionally partner with excellent bridge players. The latest victim — I mean partner — is Bob Levey. For 23 years he wrote Bob Levey’s Washington, a city column for the Washington Post. He currently runs a consulting business helping nonprofits with their web pages and other communications.

“I learned bridge on a cold winter night in 1963, when I was a freshman at the University of Chicago,” he says. “Someone called down the hall, ‘We need a fourth for bridge.’ It seemed like more fun than studying, and it still does.”

Closing in on 5,000 master points, Levey has won 39 regional titles and one national, the red-ribbon pairs with Jim Ritzenberg. He is currently working on a story for The Bridge Bulletin tentatively titled How to Dump a Partner or Be Dumped. “Neil Sedaka lies in wait,” he says, referring to the singer of Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.

Levey and I paired for the Edgartown Bridge Club game in June 22. I looked for a tour de force moment from Levey and got it on Board 12. We were sitting North-South, with North dealing and no one vulnerable:

NORTH (Kaplan)
♠ 10 7 5
♥ 10 8 5 4 3
♦ Q 7
♣ Q 8 3

WEST                          EAST
♠ Q 9 6                      ♠ A 8 3
♥ 9 7 6                       ♥ Q J 2
♦ A K J 6                  ♦ 8 3 2
♣ 10 4 2                     ♣ K 9 7 5

SOUTH (Levey)
♠ K J 4 2
♥ A K
♦ 10 9 5 4
♣ A J 6

The bidding proceeded:

North                East                South                West
Pass                  Pass                1NT                   Pass
2♦ *                Pass                 2 ♥                 All Pass

* Transfer to hearts

Opening lead: diamond king

Levey describes the action. You’ll see a great bridge mind at work, and maybe get an idea of how to think through hands. I advise using a pencil to circle each card as it’s played.

“Diamond king at trick one. East followed with the two. Diamond ace at trick two. East followed with the three. Deuce of clubs at trick three. Small from dummy. East should have played the seven, which would have given me no chance. But she played king. I won ace.

“Ace of hearts at trick four. Six, three, deuce. King of hearts at trick five. Seven, four, queen.

“Hmmmm. If hearts are three-three, and the jack is on my right, then the nine is on my left. Key information, filed away for later use. Club to the queen at trick six, all following. Spade 10 at Trick Seven. Small, small, queen.

“Things aren’t looking good. I’m on track to lose a heart, two spades for sure (three if the suit doesn’t break three-three), two diamonds and a diamond at the end. That’s at least six losers. Too many.

“But West returns a spade at trick eight. East wins with the ace. At trick nine, she plays a third spade. I play the king. Glory be, both opponents. follow.

“Now the key play at trick 10. I play the 13th spade, the jack. West pitches a diamond. I ruff with the eight. If East started with the nine of hearts, she’ll score it now and I’ll be down. But that would mean that East would have started with queen-jack-nine-fourth of hearts. So why would she have played the queen of hearts at trick five?

“She wouldn’t have.

“Either hearts were originally three-three, with nine-third on my left and queen-jack-third on my right, or West started with jack-nine-fourth. Either way, I have a sure thing.

“The eight of hearts holds Trick 10. Now a club back to my jack at Trick 11, which doesn’t get ruffed (phew!).

“At trick 12, a diamond toward dummy, which now has 10-five of hearts. If West started with jack-nine-fourth of hearts, she will have to play either the nine or the jack on this trick, allowing me to score the 10. But if West started with nine-seven-six of hearts (as in fact she did), she plays the diamond jack and I can now ruff with the five, forcing East to ruff with the queen and making my 10 good at trick 13.

“That’s what happens. On the five of hearts, East plays the queen and I score my eighth trick with the 10 of hearts.

“Easy game! By the way, East made a very good defensive play when she refused to over-ruff my eight of hearts at trick 10. If she had, the 10 would have been good. She gave me a fielder’s choice at trick 12, and I might have gone wrong.

“But not really. At Trick 12, if East was out of hearts, West would have come down to jack-nine of hearts, and would have had to play one of those cards or the other. When she didn’t, I knew the heart suit was originally three-three, and my play was easy.

“In effect, I took two finesses against the nine of hearts — while not leading a heart either time.”

If this analysis has your head spinning, let’s concentrate on one salient point. You’ll note that on Trick Three, Levey advised East playing the club seven rather than the king. The king set up a trick on the board for the club queen. On defense, try to avoid playing a card that sets up a likely trick in dummy.