The Young Lady’s Bridge Game by B. Garozzo

Source: The Palm Beach Post – Apr 20, 1968

The diagrammed hand was played by me in a recent National Pair Tournament held in Italy.

Q J Q 7 5 3 A K 4 A K 7 2

6 4 A K 8 Q J 10 9 6 8 4 3

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

 When East opened with a spade, West took the trick with the ace, cashed the spade king 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 to the ace in dummy and then cashed the ace and king of diamonds 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 reentered 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, which 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 a club, while East ruffed and returned a club, trumped by West. 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 genius by not ruffing the diamond. 

The hand, in its long 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 stratogy for 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:

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