Colby Free Press Monday, March 24, 2008 Page 7 Sally Forth • Greg Howard

Zits • Jim Borgman & Jerry Scott

Blondie • Chic Young

This is a logic-based number placement puz­ zle. The goal is to enter a number, 1-9, in each cell in which each row, Hagar the Horrible • Chris Browne column and 3x3 region must contain only one instance of each nu- meral. The solution to today’s Sudoku puzzle is right.

Beetle Bailey • Mort Walker Bridge Family Circus • Bil Keane

Mother Goose and Grimm • Mike Peters

Famous Hand About half the hands dealt in bridge are partscore hands, and while they are Crossword Tod the Dinosaur • Patrick Roberts usually not as exciting as game or slam hands, they nevertheless play an impor- tant role as building blocks to game in or in earning matchpoints in duplicate pairs contests or IMPs in team bridge. Consider this deal played in Ven- ice during the U.S.-Italy match in the 1974 world championship. It was only a partscore hand, but the huge audience that saw it played on Bridge-O-Rama got a big kick out of the masterly de- Baby Blues • Rick Kirkman & Jerry Scott fense conducted by the Italian East-West pair, Giorgio Belladonna and Garozzo, West, led the ten of clubs, and Belladon- na, East, played the deuce on it! This re- markable play paid off handsomely. The U.S. declarer won the ten with the jack, led a low trump to the ace and a low trump back. Belladonna took the king and returned the queen of clubs. When declarer covered with the ace, Garozzo ruffed and shifted to a diamond, and Belladonna cashed the king and nine of Cryptoquip clubs to put the contract down one. THANK YOU FOR South would have made the con tract READING THE had Belladonna made the normal play of the queen of clubs at trick one. Had he done that, he would have scored his king of clubs later on and given West a club , but South would have finished with two club tricks instead of only one. Belladonna knew that West’s of the ten of clubs was either a sin- gleton or a doubleton, and decided that his best chance to defeat the contract was to assume that declarer had four YOUR LOCAL SOURCE FOR: clubs rather than three. His assessment NEWS • WEATHER proved absolutely correct, and earned SPORTS his team an unexpected gain on a “run- 155 W. 5th • 785-462-3963 of-the-mill” partscore deal.

Comic 3-24.indd 1 3/21/08 3:46:19 PM