Source:Â 70th Fall North American Bridge Championships November 21 – December 1, 1996
Player: Wubbo de Boer, the Netherlands.
Author: Eric Kokish (Canada).
Occasion: The Generali World Individual, Paris, May 1996.
Le Bridgeur, the premier French bridge publication, each year gives an award to the player who is chosen by the International Bridge Press Association as having given a hand the best play of the year. The author, in this case Eric Kokish of Canada, also receives an award.
This is the hand that won the prize this 1996 year:
Wubbo de Boer ruffed the opening club lead. If declarer follows with a heart to the queen, the contract fails because the defense can win and clear trumps, and declarer must lose a second heart trick. So Wubbo guessed correctly to run the 
10 round to South’s ace.
Back came a second club, which he ruffed. Now the problem for declarer is that if he plays on trumps the defense can duck the first round. When they win the second trump and play a third club the hearts are blocked. Declarer has to ruff to get back to hand and runs out of trumps.
However, if he unblocks the hearts at once before playing the 
K, South wins his A and leads a diamond to his partner. South then gets a heart ruff.
De Boer found an ingenious if quixotic solution to his problem. Having gone to the trouble of finessing the 10 at trick two, he now led the K from his hand, crashing the queen, then ruffed a heart with dummy’s K! Then he simply played on trumps, having retained control of the hand, and could not be prevented from making 10 tricks.
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