Suddenly, something changes in partner. He's playing faster and less accurately than he has been before. After two disasters, I try to break the losing rhythm by offering to get him a Diet Coke. He declines, and we continue the session.

	AK62 1084 AQ75 Q5
	3 A7 9432 AKJ642

Partner	West	Me	East
1	2	Dbl	Pass
3	Pass	3	Pass
3NT	Pass	Pass	Pass

The bidding is simple and uneventful; we reach the normal spot. I would very much like to be declarer right now to give partner a much-needed rest, but I can't bid notrump; his stopper might be positional. I'm dummy and I'm worried.

The opening lead is the K, which partner ducks without any pause at all. I remark, "slow down, you are playing too fast. I can't count the number of times I blew a board by playing too fast from dummy at trick one." "It doesn't matter this time." West continues with a second heart, won by partner. Partner next takes a diamond finesse of sorts. It's of sorts because the K appears on the lead of the 2. Partner wins and starts running clubs, while I cringe. He's still not paused for thought, and I suspect he's already blown the hand.

Assuming the K is a singleton, partner has a claim for the rest of the tricks, but he doesn't know it; he's just running his clubs and hoping for an error. The key play was at trick five. Before playing a second club, he needed to cash the Q. That's a Vienna Coup, allowing a simple double squeeze to materialize when West has to keep hearts, East diamonds, and both spades. With the diamond suit blocked, East can pitch a diamond at the end and did, holding us to 11 tricks.

At trick five or so, I am also thinking that West probably erred. Playing a second heart is pointless. If partner has a singleton spade, a spade shift will break up the double squeeze. Perhaps playing too fast a trick one helped encourage West to err, but the errors more than balanced. Certainly few Wests would find the spade shift; a good portion of the field should find the double squeeze. Oh, well.

The whole hand was

	AK62 1084 AQ75 Q5
Q954 KQJ532 K 97		J1087 96 J1086 1083
	3 A7 9432 AKJ642

After the hand, I drag partner away from the table and tell him he blew it simply by losing concentration at the key moment. He sees the error and is unhappy. I add, "you've played very well for three sessions, but it seems as if you lost concentration in the final. That's the first time I've seen that from you." He agrees and can't say more, so I add, "we'll do better next time," with a smile and a clap on the back. Maybe we shall.