Contract Bridge

Until they split up a couple of decades ago, Bob Hamman and Bobby Wolff were generally regarded as one of the best pairs in the world. Together they had a magnificent record in national and world championships, deriving their success from a style that stressed simple bidding and technical perfection.

Here is an example of how well they played together. The deal occurred in the 1978 Reisinger team championship, which their team won handily. Wolff, East, opened with four diamonds, a pre-emptive bid aimed mostly at making it difficult for North-South to enter the auction.

After two passes, North bid four hearts. When this rolled around to Hamman, he doubled. South retreated to four spades, which Hamman also doubled and North redoubled. The bidding then ground to a halt, and Hamman led the king of diamonds.

It did not take Wolff long to find the killing defense. He overtook the king of diamonds with the ace, cashed the queen, West discarding a low club, and then led a third diamond, deliberately handing declarer a ruff-and-discard.

This Greek gift did not help South at all. In fact, he now had to go down no matter what he did. If he discarded a club, Hamman would ruff with the nine of spades to guarantee himself a trump trick that would sink the contract.

And if South ruffed the diamond with the ten of spades, which is what he actually did, he would still go down after Hamman discarded a heart on the trick. By discarding, Hamman assured that his K-9-2 of spades would produce a trump trick one way or another, and this trick, together with the ace of clubs, eventually set the contract.