Herald-Journal – 6 Abr 1981
Here is one of those so-called «book hands» with a surprise ending.
Clubs are opened and continued. South ruffs the second club with his 10 of trumps, plays the queen of trumps and then the deuce to dummy’s nine. Now he leads the eight of hearts and finesses West takes his king and leads a third club. South makes the loser-on-loser play of discarding a diamond.
That diamond was going to lose eventually so why not now?
This leaves dummy’s king of trumps to ruff the fourth club and South takes the rest of the tricks. This is the sort of play that any expert is expected to make and does make, but it decided an important team match when the late John Crawford held the West cards. Declarer made the expert play as expected, but when he led the eight of hearts and let it ride John let it hold. South tried the finesse again.
Who wouldn’t?
Now John took his king and led the third club. South discarded his losing diamond and John led a fourth club. South ruffed in dummy, but the late Howard Schenken, sitting East. got to throw away his third and last heart.
There was no way for South to get to his hand to pull the last trumps and he had to lose the hand and the match