5th WORLD JUNIOR CAMP Vargesztes, Hungary, July 2003
The year was 1975, and my partner Max Odlund and I were invited to play the great tournament week in Marbella, Spain. Everything was paid for by the owner of the Swedish Bridge magazine. The week started with a pairs tournament which lasted for several days. That year all the top French and Italian pairs were participating; we did nicely enough, and harboured real hopes for the upcoming Teams event.
But a few days before the Teams event was due to start the Spanish dictator Franco died, and the teams event was completely canceled!
As my partner and I played a very aggressive club system, we were invited by Benito Garozzo and his girlfriend Lea Dupont to play some rubber against them. We had a fantastic time and Benito was a really nice guy. However (rather masochistically) I remember one hand with especial pleasure. My partner opened with a super-mini (8-10) no-trump, and I held a 3-2-4-4 two count with just the 
Q, so I tried 2
.
The auction was passed back to Lea, who reopened with a double… and no-one had anything more to say. Before Benito passed he kindly pointed out that the double was take-out.
Dummy was a 3-2-4-4 eight count with just the ace of hearts, the club king, and a random jack. When Benito led his singleton club I could see that seven down was a real possibility so I turned to Benito and offered four down. Benito said thanks, but no thanks, so I played low from dummy and his partner went into the tank. The more she thought the more visibly frustrated Benito was becoming, and eventually when she finally ducked he recriminated her for making the play and agreed to take four down in the same sentence.
The next day we were invited to play against Belladonna and Vivaldi, who also wanted to play against this funny Swedish system. They killed us – they held all the cards but also outplayed us too. But I remember one of the best moments in my bridge career when I held something like a 2- 2-2-7 shape with seven solid clubs missing the queen and the 
AK. I was doubled in 4 and saw dummy come down with nothing but the Q, so I now had nine top tricks.
As I knew that the hand against Garozzo had been discussed thoroughly, I turned to Belladonna and offered him three down. Belladonna smiled pityingly at me like a father to his child, and said “Me Belladonna, not Garozzo, me no take.” I played on and took my nine tricks, turned to Belladonna and said “Oh, you are Belladonna not Garozzo, one down!” the audience laughed, and even Belladonna thought it was amusing to be fooled by a Swedish junior.