Contract Bridge

The annals of bridge contain many famous hands, and this is one of the most remarkable of all. It was played in 1954 in Helsinki, Finland, during a match between Austria and Germany. The bidding is not shown because it was indescribably bad!

At the first table, Karl Schneider of Austria, one of the best cardplayers of all time, got to six hearts, and West led a club.

Schneider saw at a glance that there was no legitimate chance to make the slam since he had two spade losers. Nevertheless, he decided to play boldly in an effort to steal the contract. After ruffing the club in dummy, he led a low spade to the jack! West won with the ace and played another club.

After ruffing again in dummy, Schneider cashed his A-Q of trumps and ace of clubs, then played all of his remaining trumps, in the course of which West erred by discarding a diamond.

Declarer’s last three cards were the 10-5 of spades and a diamond, while dummy had the A-K-6 of diamonds. But on the last trump lead, poor East had to discard from the Q-J-9 of diamonds and king of spades. Whatever he chose to do, Schneider was certain to win the last three tricks, so the slam was made.

At the second table, the German North arrived at the equally hopeless contract of six spades! He had the small matter of the missing A-K of trumps to contend with, but he also made the slam!

East led a club, taken by dummy’s ace. The spade jack was then led, and everyone played low! East obviously thought declarer had the A-Q and hoped to lead him astray by letting the jack win.

North, alert to the situation that had developed, next crossed to the ace of diamonds and led a low spade toward dummy’s 10-5. East held firmly to his view that North had the A-Q , so he went up with his king. It held for an instant -until West produced the ace. So again the slam was made, but this time in spades.

Tomorrow: The science of deduction.