Contract Bridge

Before the U.S team rallied over the last two boards to win the 2003 world championship by 1 IMP, Italy had staged its own rally to erase a 28-IMP deficit and take the lead midway through the final 16 deals. This was the hand that put the Italians ahead at that time.

When the deal was first played, Norberto Bocchi and Georgio Duboin of Italy bid and made three notrump with the East-West hands. Bocchi, East, took 10 top tricks after an opening spade lead by South to score 430 points.

At the other table, with Lorenzo Lauria and Alfredo Versace sitting North-South, the bidding went as shown. Versace’s two-diamond bid showed a long major suit, and Lauria did not really care which one it was. Thus, the Italians ended in four spades doubled, which seemingly was destined to go down two.

Bob Hamman, West, led a low spade, taken by Paul Soloway with the ace. The defenders could have collected two hearts and a club at that point to hold the U.S. loss to 8 IMPs, but Soloway, no doubt thinking he would have plenty of time to take tricks later, and hoping to stop club ruffs in the dummy, continued with a trump. That gave Versace a chance for a huge pickup.

He won the return with dummy’s king and now had the opportunity for a rare “backward” finesse —leading the jack from dummy, in the hope that East had the queen and West the ten. Given East’s one-notrump opening, Versace felt the queen was much more likely to be on his right, so after a long study he led the jack from dummy and, when Soloway followed low, let it ride.

This gave Versace five diamond tricks and 11 in all for a score of +690. Added to the 430 registered by his teammates at the other table, the result was a 15-IMP gain for the Italians, giving them a 3-IMP lead with just eight deals to go in the match.