Santiago de Chile May 9th, 2017
In the second match of the Round Robin of the VII South American Open Bridge Teams Championship two of the favorite teams clashed one against the other, the Ventin team and the Caracci team, we selected board 22 where the World Master Mustafa Cem Tokay showed a clean play card technique with a touch of subtle elegance.
Open Room
Board 22Vul: E/O, Dealer: East
 3 J 10 7 5 6 5 4 2 10 6 4 3 |
||
| A Q J 10 5 4 2 9 8 J 10 8 2 |
8 6 K 6 4 A K 7 K J 9 7 5 |
|
| K 9 7 A Q 3 2 Q 9 3 A Q 8 |
The Auction:
| West | North | East | South |
| Donati | Pacareu | Tokay | Robles |
| 1NT | Pass | ||
| 4* |
Pass | 4 |
Fin |
* Transfer to spade
In the closed room East was Jose Manuel Robles and he decided to open one club, Versace in South overcalled 1NT and Marcelo Caracci jumped to 3 spades, that was the final contract. North led a heart, which limited declarer to 9 tricks, East lost two hearts, a diamond and a club.
In the open room Mustafa decided to open 1NT, Benjamín Robles passed hiding the strength of his hand and Donati leap to 4 diamonds, transfer to spades.
Lead: 9
The lead was won in dummy with the 10. The problem of the hand was to avoid losing two hearts, a diamond and a club as it happened in the other room. Let’s see how elegantly Tokay solved the problem.
At trick two the declarer left dummy playing a club to his J, South Q won, Benjamin made the best return: K, dummy won with Ace, cashed the Q to eliminate the remaining trump, and continued playing a diamond to his Ace. Now declarer played the K, South won with the A, and now with great elegance Mustafa played a heart from dummy.
South was end played and had to surrender, if he continued with the heart ace and another heart, Mustafa would play a diamond from dummy eliminating a loser, if he returned a diamond, dummy would play the J producing three diamond tricks and if he returned a club, dummy would discard a second heart and ended up with a trick won with the fifth club of his hand.