In Round 5 Italy defeated Scotland 40 to 1, finishing the round in its group second position just 7VP behind South Africa. One of the hands that gave Italy a two-digit swing was board 9.
Board 9. Dealer North, E/W Vul
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Lead: 
6
Declarer not yet aware of the bad trump distribution played the A and continued with the 
9, when Versace played a little club, he did the same and Zaleski won the trick with his J…and quickly returned a little spade. Declarer played the 
8 and must have felt very uncomfortable when he saw a red card played by Versace: 
4 … Gerrard played a small trump from his hand and won the next trick with dummy’s 8. He ruffed a diamond in his hand and continued with the K. Zaleski won the trick with his A, Versace discard the 2. East next card was the K… Declarer won the trick with the A and ruffed another diamond in his hand to continue with his A, Zaleski ruffed and played the K, Gerrard ruffed in his hand played the trump queen and claimed 8 tricks. Two down not doubled … Gerrard at this point should have feel fine…no double… no trouble…
At the other table:
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Lead: 4
Bocchi played the one and only one dummy’s trump the 8, and to his surprise he saw Hay playing the J…he played his 3. North continued playing the 9 to the Q and a diamond to the Q…now he played the A and discard a little club. Bocchi next move was to ruff a diamond in his hand, and played the Q, East covered with his K, Bocchi played A from dummy and ruffed another diamond.
The position was:
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Now declarer played his |
The only lead that defeats the contract is the A…did you find it?
We wanted to see what had happened with this hand in all the other tables … and this is a summary of what happened:
Open
Group A: the 4contract was played in 7 of the 14 tables all down 1 or 2 tricks.
Group B: the 4contract was played in 8 of the 14 tables, Poland was the only one who won and scored +590, the lead was the K.
Group C: the 4contract was played in 7 of the 14 tables all down 1 or 2 tricks.
Group D: the 4contract was played in 7 of the 14 tables, Iceland and Greece were the winners. In this group a table played 4 redoubled! and scored +880 …
Ladies: the 4 contract was played in 18 of the 42 tables, only Turkey won it … but it did not give them IMPs because Argentina managed to win 3NT in the other table.
Seniors: the 4contract was played in 18 of the 32 tables, winners were… Israel, Netherlands and Hungary
The big winners of this hand were those who played only a partial … though some of them couldn’t bring the contract home.