Caution, Genius at Work: Geir Helgemo by Brian Senior

Source:    Bulletins

Geir Helgemo, originally from Norway but nowadays representing Monaco in international play, has been responsible for some of the finest pieces of declarer play we have ever seen. This one was pretty special even by his own standards.

(i) Hearts and a minor

(ii) Game-forcing with spade support

(iii) Shortage

(iv) RKCB

(v) Two key cards plus the trump queen

Helness judged that his fifth spade meant that, with at least ten spades between the two hands, the queen would not be required, hence he showed the queen when not actually holding it. As it turned out, he was wrong, in the sense that the grand slam would have been much easier to make had the queen of trumps been present. However, Helgemo showed his brilliance on a deal where most would not even find the winning line when seeing all four hands.

West led the king of clubs and East played the jack, won by Helgemo with the ace. He cashed the ace of hearts and the king then ace of diamonds, cashed the king of hearts, then led the nine of spades from dummy, and ran it! The first-round finesse was required, as will be shown by the end position that was reached.

A spade to the jack came next, leaving this ending:

Helgemo led the king of spades from his hand. West, with three cards in hearts and three in clubs, had to find a discard. Since North had three low hearts and South had three low clubs, West had no winning play. If he discarded a heart, Helgemo would overtake the king of spades with dummy’s ace. Then he would ruff a heart, ruff a club, ruff a heart, ruff a club, and dummy’s last heart would win the last trick. Alternatively, if West threw a club, Helgemo would allow the king of spades to hold and would ruff a club, ruff a heart, ruff a club, ruff a heart, and his last club would be a winner at trick 13. An entry-shifting trump squeeze is a rare enough beast at the best of times, but the first-round trump finesse makes it truly special. Play the hand through with declarer cashing the ace of spades before taking the finesse and you will see that the squeeze no longer operates and the contract must fail by a trick.

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