Source: J Donn’s favorite deal for bridgewinners
Don’t tell if you know the hand. It’s from not very long ago. The 2011 Yeh Bros Cup, to be precise.
NT 15-17, 2NT minors. I’m sure you would have all bid it better than this, but here you are in 4
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W leads the 7 of spades to the king and ace, and the 6 of spades comes back, W following with the 4. You overtake in dummy to lead a club, and it goes J from E. You cover with the king as LHO plays the 4. Your play.
The club J appears to be from AJ doubleton. You realize that if you continue with another high club, E will win the ace and play another spade, promoting an extra trump trick for W with his original 984. However, there is a simple workaround. You can exit with a low club instead, then ruff the spade return high, draw the last trump, and hope a diamond to the 8 gets you home (either LHO with J, or RHO with KJx or KJ42 in which case he wins the jack but is endplayed to give you either the diamond suit or the dummy). So you exit with a low club and find…
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that you should have considered E was Agustin Madala.
Notice if E had followed with the 8 of clubs on the first round, declarer would have put in the 10 and continued with high clubs. Eventually E would have had to win the fourth round, and been endplayed to give the lead to dummy. The low club exit didn’t cost a natural trump trick, but it allowed E to to win his two tricks in time to exit with the fourth club, turning the endplay onto declarer.
It’s one thing to see the endplay coming, already likely the sign of an expert. But to imagine the picture the club jack will paint in declarer’s head? To even think of it in the first place? Before trick 3 at the table? And then execute it in tempo, for the right reason? I could have looked at that hand for 20 minutes and not figured out a way to beat 4. I think Agustin is a bridge genius unlike any we have seen, and this hand is just one piece of evidence.