Thursday May 26 2011
This spectacular deal comes from a recent friendly match between the Netherlands and Iceland and features a defence that should give encouragement to ordinary players everywhere. North-South vulnerable, dealer West:
When Iceland held the East-West cards they bid to five diamonds where declarer collected 11 tricks. When Iceland sat North-South this was the bidding:
East’s bid of 2
was forcing to game, and West’s double of 3
was for penalty. I should like to report that the defence went as follows: West led the 
K and continued the suit to East’s ace; East gave West a club ruff, then overtook the Q with the king to cash a second round of the suit before leading a third round in an attempt to promote a trump for West. This last would not have succeeded, but the penalty of 500 would provide compensation for the non-vulnerable game.
In reality, West led the Q and East allowed it to hold the trick. West switched to the K, but since that would normally show the king and queen, East overtook with the ace. He continued with the K, on which West discarded a spade rather than his second club. Convinced by all of this that West still had the Q, East switched to his spade in an effort to cut declarer off from dummy’s second spade winner before East’s trump could be drawn. Winning in dummy, declarer could now have made the contract by finessing the 10, but he tried to cash another spade instead. East ruffed, South over-ruffed and led the K to West’s ace. Since there was now no entry to dummy for a club finesse, South still had a club loser and the contract was booked for one down. But just as the lead of the K had earlier convinced East that West had the queen, so East’s overtaking of the king with the ace convinced West that East had the queen. You can guess the rest – West played a club, and South claimed the contract.