Contract Bridge

Famous hand

This deal, from the 1956 U.S.-Italy world championship match, became famous not because it was brilliantly played, but because it wasn't!

The American team gained 750 points when it bid and made a grand slam in diamonds while the Italians stopped in a small slam. Both declarers made all the tricks on identical lines of play, but the fact is that they each missed the correct way to try to score 13 tricks.

At both tables, declarer won the club lead with the ace and cashed five diamonds and five spades, leaving South with just the Q-10 of hearts. On the last spade, West, who held the queen of clubs and K-8 of hearts, had to discard in front of dummy's A-9 of hearts and jack of clubs. Both Wests discarded a heart, and declarer won the last two tricks with the ace and queen of hearts.

This line of play succeeded only because West, who was marked with the queen of clubs, also had the king of hearts. However, a method of play was available that would have succeeded even if East had the king.

The best chance for 13 tricks is to win the club, ruff a club, cash the K-Q of diamonds and ruff another club. Declarer then leads a spade to the jack and ruffs dummy's last club with the ace. A heart to the ace followed by the jack of trumps allows declarer to discard the heart ten and then run his spades to make seven.

The recommended play works whenever the diamonds break 3-2, a 68 percent probability. The approach adopted by both declarers wins only when West has the heart king, a 50 percent chance, and is still available if the diamonds divide 4-1.

At this level of competition, it is surprising that neither declarer found the line of play that offered the maximum chance of scoring 13 tricks. Even world-famous experts, it appears, have blind spots!