Well, the Ottawa Senators finally showed up tonight.  Unfortunately it wasn't the Ottawa Senators of the first 3 rounds of this year's playoffs, it was the Ottawa Senators we've come to expect over the past dozen or so years of uninspired, undisciplined, lethargic, gutless underperformance once playoff time rolls around.  We lost 6-2, with a rare own-goal (as they say in soccer) and we're out.  Both Ottawa goals came from Alfredsson, the villain in game 4.  Nobody else in a Senators uniform came to play.

Continuing the hand with Jeff from yesterday...

After trying to give Jeff a club ruff in 4 Hearts, declarer cashed another club and pitched his only spade.  Now dummy has:

K43 / 963 / T4 / KQ

I have

T92 / AJ8 / K732 / -

Declarer runs the Ten of Diamonds, plays a Diamond to the Jack, (Jeff follows with the 5 followed by the 9, playing udca) and leads the King of hearts around to you.  What now?

Now the hand is an open book.  Either declarer has 5 hearts and 2 diamonds left (and pard has given false count in diamonds for some reason,) in which case he's cold, or he has 4 hearts and 3 diamonds left, in which case you have 1 and only 1 way to beat it.  You need partner to have the Heart Ten (assuming he doesn't have the Queen, which is virtually impossible on the play thus far.) You have to win the heart (ducking is fatal) and play a third diamond to give pard an uppercut.

I made the lazy, no-win play of winning and returning a Spade (a case of making the play you wish you'd made earlier, even though it's too late to do any good now.)  Now declarer was able to draw Jeff's last trump (the Ten) with his Queen and ruff his losing diamond with dummy's last trump.  Making 4.

Played it like a Senator.  Sigh.

Declarer had

6 / KQ742 / AQJ86 / 86

Jeff had

AQJ875 / T5 / 95 / 742

(I still hate the lead, but it's not what led to the bad result once declarer played the 2nd diamond off the board.  Technically, declarer WAS cold once I continued clubs.)