NABC Site Bulletins Results
March 18th
This deal comes from the second round of the Vanderbilt in which Johan Sylvan and Frederic Wrang of Hemant Lall’s team faced Tor Helness and Geir Helgemo of Pierre Zimmermann’s squad.
West lead the K, ruffed. Declarer Helgemo crossed to the Q, ruffed dummy’s remaining spade, and cashed the A K. When both defenders followed, declarer crossed to dummy’s A and played dummy’s Q to East’s ace. At this point, East is down to all black cards, so he decided to exit with a spade.
Helgemo ruffed in dummy and carefully cashed a second club before playing another trump. West was endplayed whether he ruffed the K or not.
This pretty line has only one possible defect. If East had started with four hearts (giving West a 5=4=2=2 pattern), East could defeat the contract by playing the last heart when in with the trump ace: West can ruff with the K and exit a club.