Sitting North, you are dealt a motley collection of cards:

♠️ K 2
♥️ K 9 7 5 2
♦️ 8 6 3
♣️ K 3 2

As South, partner opens 1♠️. Faute de mieux, you respond 1NT. Partner rebids 2♦️. More often than not, partner will hold five spades, four diamonds and anywhere from 12 to 18 high-card points.

What to do now? Instead of leaving partner high and dry in 2♦️, you rightly revert to 2♠️. Though you have more diamonds in your hand, this strategy is known as “false preference.”

There are two important reasons for your decision.

The board voted unanimously at its June 28 meeting to reject Island Adventure Rentals’ application to resume moped rentals on Beach Road. The business had long been one of the few remaining moped rental operations on the Island but closed during the pandemic.

The Dukes County government is looking into the potential of changing a state finance law so it could have a more stable rainy day fund.

No one was hurt after a Jeep caught fire on Sea View avenue in Oak Bluffs Sunday.

On the fifth anniversary of the Federated Church’s dedication as part of The African-American Heritage Trail of Martha’s Vineyard, 14 Island residents gathered in the space to recite Frederick Douglass’s speech What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?

Soaring costs for steel, a surge in demand at shipyards, a shortage of skilled labor and the Steamship Authority’s own limitations all played their parts in the boat line’s failure to accurately estimate the cost of converting its new oil field vessels for use as freight ferries.

The ferry line announced Wednesday that it was changing the rules for the “blue line” standby on the Vineyard route, moving from a hard cap of 15 vehicles a day to a new rolling 12-vehicle cap.

The night of the fireworks, July 4, offers a show far and beyond. For those looking up, take a close look at Venus setting in the west. You may have to look carefully to see the bright red planet Mars near Venus. The two are only a few degrees apart. With Venus being so brilliant it is easy to miss the second closest planet to us. Mars is about as far from the Earth as it gets and still be visible. Mars is over 200 million miles away. It is no wonder the planet is so dim. Compare it to the much closer Venus. Venus is 37 million miles away.

It’s usually unwise to lead an unprotected ace, even if you’ve bid the suit and partner has raised it. You might be setting up an opponent’s king. Trudy Ulmer understood this and made an unusual killing lead at my expense in the weekly 2 p.m. duplicate game at Howes House next to the West Tisbury Library on June 20.

She was sitting West and dealing, with both sides vulnerable:

                         NORTH
                        ♠️ K Q 10 3
                        ♥️ A K J 9
                        ♦️ 10 9
                        ♣️ A J 10

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