The Fine Italian Hand by Belladonna, Forquet y Garozzo

The Fine Italian Hand  was a Bridge Column in the sixties by Giorgio Belladonna, Pietro Forquet and Benito Garozzo published in various U.S. newspapers.

Today: The Young Lady’s Bridge Game

North-South Vulnerable

West	North	East	South
	1NT	2	3
Pass	4	The End

The diagrammed hand was played by Garozzo in a recent national pair tournament held in Italy.

When East opened with a spade, West took the trick with the ace cashed the K and returned a club with Garozzo holding the North cards, took with the ace. Basing his play on the probability of a 4-2 distribution of trumps, led the heart queen and a heart to the ace in dummy and then cashed the A y K in the closed hand.

The small diamond he then led was trumped by West who returned a spade. Garozzo ruffed in the closed hand, discarding a club from dummy and re-entered dummy with the trump to take the ten tricks he needed.

D’Alelio, at the next table, came up against the same defense and played for safety in the same way. West, however, did not ruff the third round of diamonds he pitched a club. This pleased d’Alelio who prepared to gather the fruit of  his stroke of genius. Thus  he went on to play the winning diamond from dummy and West discarded another club, while East ruffed and returned a club, trumped by West. One down.

The trumps of the opponents were divided 3-3 and there was nothing left for d’Alelio to do but congratulate West who accomplished the real stroke of genious by not running the diamond.

The hand, in its pilgrimmage ended at the table of a young lady who was not only very attractive but, also a good player even though somewhat reckless.

After cashing the club ace on the third round, she carried out a strategy far less brilliant and cautious, than that of the two champions, but it was certainly more remunerative. With the greatest assurance, she ran trumps for three rounds and took eleven tricks.

This is the diagram of the entire deal:

Esta entrada también está disponible en: Spanish