DENVER FALL 2015 NABC – NOV.26-DEC.6
The next Fall NABC will be in Denver so let us look some interesting deals from the 1978 Denver, NABC.
This is the second of them….
Read the first one a Bob Hamman’s hand Click Here
Read the second One Click Here
Do I look like Santa Claus?
Bob Hamman surprised declarer on this deal from the first qualifying session of the Mixed Pairs — he discarded instead of ruffing.
North-South arrived in 6
and the 
Q opening lead was taken by the K.
Declarer got the bad news in trumps when he cashed the A K. Then he lead the 
10, covered by the jack and won with the A. Declarer led the A and Hamman discarded a club.
Declarer discarded a diamond, then tried to set up the diamonds by cashing the king and ruffing one, but the Q didn’t drop, so down he went.
Then declarer asked Hamman if he could have made it somehow and why didn’t he ruff the A? “Do I look like Santa Claus?” asked Hamman. “If you had played me for the minors, you would have had me on a dead squeeze.”
As usual, he was right. After pitching a diamond on the high spade, declarer should come back to his hand with a spade ruff and force East to take his trump trick. The 
K would come back and declarer could win in dummy.
Now another spade ruff would put declarer in his and to run the rest of the hearts. This would be the position with three cards left to play.
When declarer leads the last trump and pitches a club from dummy, East can’t find a discard. Nope, Bob Hamman isn’t Santa Claus.