Yarborough by Foxymoron

The term Yarborough originated from whist. The Earl of Yarborough, believed to be in 1874, offered the odds of 1,000 to 1 against someone being dealt a hand in whist with no card above a nine. The true odds are 1828 to 1, so he was taking a rake of over 40%, not bad if you can afford the odd hit.

The North Lincolnshire village of Yarborough has a long history, with evidence of human occupation dating back to the Iron Age. The village was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Earburg", meaning "eagle fortification". The crest above is spectacular.

There was a difficult quiz question once. What links the chemical element Niobium with the weakest possible bridge hand? I don't expect this to detain you too long. Answer next blog. Post "solved" in the comments. 

I picked up a Yarborough last week at the Woodberry and was surprised to become declarer.

East opened a very sound 2S and South doubled. North bid 2NT, the Lebensohl convention, showing any weak hand and asking his partner to bid 3C. South, however, had too good a hand for a sign-off, and tried 3NT but North corrected to 4H.

East had a tricky lead. The king of spades was sure to be on his left, so he tried the ace of spades, on which partner played the two. This should be suit-preference for clubs, but could also, of course, be a singleton. Given that East has only three diamonds, I think the club switch is now percentage, as declarer will be able to draw trumps and may discard a club on a long diamond if they are 3-3.

A difficult decision, but Harvey Fox, East, played a second spade and a club went away on a top diamond. Two of the four declarers in 4H made, and two went off, so the defence is not obvious.