The Purim holiday has something in common with the game of bridge. All the little events that play their parts in a bridge hand, and lead up to the final result, may appear to be random. But after analysis, and looking at all 52 cards, we see how the puzzle fits.

The placement of the cards is predestined. Sometimes the players can’t do anything to change the result, because the outcome has been determined by where the cards lie. Switch two cards and suddenly there's a different result; yet nobody has done anything different.

For example, look at this hand, from an Australian Women's Team championship several years ago:
South dealer
Both sides vulnerable
North (dummy)
S K J
H J 9 7
D Q 8 7 4 3 2
C Q 6

West East
S 6 5 4 S Q 10 7 3
H K Q 8 6 H 10 4 2
D 10 6 5 D J 9
C K 10 8 C 9 5 3 2

South
S A 9 8 2
H A 5 3
D A K
C A J 7 4

South West North East
2NT pass 4C pass
4D pass 6D (all pass)

Opening lead: king of hearts

North and South were losing the match and looking for a chance to win points. This explains North's aggressive jump to four clubs (the Gerber convention, asking for aces) and her subsequent jump to six diamonds, when her partner showed all the aces with the first step, four diamonds. The four-diamond bid actually showed zero or four aces, but North knew that it was four because South had shown a strong hand with her two-notrump bid.

West's opening lead was the king of hearts. Dummy (the North cards) came down face up on the table. In a tournament, declarer calls the cards from dummy and his partner plays the cards that are called. Declarer won the first trick with the ace of hearts, drew two rounds of trumps by playing the ace and king of diamonds, and then took a finesse in spades, leading the 2 of spades to the jack. She was hoping that the queen of spades was in the West hand. When East won the trick with the queen, the slam contract was defeated, because East returned a heart to her partner's queen for the setting trick.

But what would have happened if the queen of spades was with West instead of East? The finesse to the jack of spades would have won the trick. Now declarer draws the last trump with the queen of diamonds, cashes the king of spades and leads a club to the ace. The ace of spades is used to discard dummy's second club, and a heart is led toward the jack-nine. Success! All because the queen of spades was in one hand instead of the other. And who put it there?

Hamman, not Haman

This past fall in Monte Carlo, the final of the world team championships between teams from Italy and the United States was decided by the smallest possible margin. After 128 bridge hands, one trick decided the difference, with the USA winning. On the very last hand, an incident occurred that the world of bridge is still buzzing about. The Italian declarer reached to play a card from the dummy and played the wrong card because he didn't see which card his opponent had led. Bob Hamman (not Haman), the world's #1 ranked player, for the USA, would not let the declarer change his play, because according to the rules, once a card is touched it is played. The incident was exacerbated by the fact that the Italian player who was dummy, and was supposed to sit there and play the cards that his partner directed him to, was too anxious to sit there; it was the last hand and he wanted to see how his teammates had done, so he dashed out of the room after putting his cards on the table, leaving his partner to reach for the cards himself. The Purim aspect of the deal is illustrated in the following diagram from this famous hand:
North (dummy)
S Q 9 8 7

West East (Hamman)
S 6 5 4 3 S 10

South (declarer)
S -

At one point in the middle of the hand, West (Paul Soloway for the USA) led the 4 of spades. Declarer could win the trick by playing the queen, the highest card at this point (the ace and jack had already been played to the previous trick). But declarer didn't look closely at the card led (because he was expecting a different suit to be led); he leaned over and played the 7 of spades on the 4. Hamman played his 10, the only spade left in his hand, and declarer suddenly saw what he had done. He wanted to take back his play of the 7 and play the queen from dummy instead. The tournament director was called and he ruled that he could not take back his play. Notice, however, that West held four spades (6, 5, 4, 3) in this position and East held one (the ten). Even though the declarer made the error of playing the 7 from dummy, he would have survived his mistake if East had held one of West's small cards instead of the 10. In fact, the odds on East holding the 10 were 4-to-1 against. Now who put that 10 of spades there in the East hand, which decided the world championships?

Happy Purim!