Contract Bridge

This is one of the most dramatic hands in bridge history. It occurred during a match between Sweden and Italy at the World Bridge Olympiad in New York in 1964.

The deal was played on Bridge-O-Rama before a large and enthusiastic audience. The match was close, and the spectators, regardless of their sympathies, were in a high state of excitement when the hand was displayed on the huge electronic screen. They saw that the Swedish North-South pair could make a grand slam by guessing which opponent had the king of spades, and they already knew the Italian pair at the first table had bid and made only six diamonds.

A great roar went up from the audience when South (Sven Berglund) bid seven diamonds. The Italian West led the king of hearts, taken by dummy’s ace. Berglund then took five long minutes to study the situation as the spectators debated whether he would guess the location of the king of spades and thus avoid a heart loser.

Most of them thought he would cash the ace of spades and then lead the queen, discarding a heart if East followed low. This, of course, would have resulted in down one.

The audience sat transfixed until, at long last, Berglund led a club to the ace, returned the ten of spades and followed low from dummy. At this point, pandemonium broke loose. The cheers, the groans, the shouts, the applause and the I-told-you-so’s that followed could surely have been heard in Stockholm.

Berglund proceeded to make the grand slam by ruffing two clubs in dummy and discarding a heart on the ace of spades. This gave the Swedish team a gain of 13 International Match Points instead of a loss of 16, and Sweden won the match, 66 IMPs to 49.