The Adventures of Poor Frank V

The Adventures of Poor Frank

Poor Frank opened the South hand 2♣, North showed zero or one control, but when this player later supported clubs, Frank took a shot at 6♣.  West led the K.  Declarer won his ace and realized he was short of entries to the dummy.  This helps explain his subsequent play.

Poor Frank cashed the A, then ruffed the K low in dummy.  Lucky Archie raised his eyebrows at this play and commented, “Ruffing good tricks, Frank?”

Poor Frank had recently seen his favorite movie “Cool Hand Luke” for the twenty-fourth time and replied, “Sometimes ruffing good tricks can be a pretty cool play, Archie.”

Declarer then led the ♣8, East playing the four, South the three, and West the seven.  Poor Frank next led a small spade, inserting the queen when Archie played low.  This held the trick and declarer cashed the ♣A to drop his rival’s king and soon claimed this small slam, conceding a heart trick.

The twenty or so kibitzers gathered around the table soon spread the news about the interchange between Lucky Archie and Poor Frank.  As a result, all the local bridge buffs began calling Poor Frank “Cool Ruff Frank.”  However, it was not long before Lucky Archie returned to his lucky ways and beat Cool Ruff Frank unmercifully, and the name Cool Ruff Frank was quickly forgotten.  In a week, it was back to, “Poor Frank, when will he ever learn?”

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