Brilliancy Missed
By Mark Horton In 46th World Bridge Teams Championships On 22nd August 2023
On this deal from Round 6 a few pairs reached 6
, but if the defenders are awake the contract usually failed:
If West leads the 
J and East ruffs, declarer has an easy time. However, if East calmly discards a diamond declarer appears to be in trouble. That also appears to the case if West leads a top club. However, suppose declarer wins the opening lead.
If it is a spade the 5-0 split is known, so declarer crosses to dummy with the Q and plays a second spade. It won’t help East to ruff, so declarer can cross to dummy with a diamond and play another spade. Ruffing is still no good for East, but after winning, declarer unblocks the diamonds, ruffs a club to hand, pitches a spade on the 
Q and ruffs a spade, East scoring just one trump trick.
If West leads a top club having made a Michaels cue bid then declarer should appreciate the spades must be 5-0 and play accordingly.
Several declarers made 12 tricks in the heart game, but I suspect that was because East ruffed an initial spade lead. I heard that someone played a low spade from the AKQ3 towards dummy at some point and scored dummy’s 9. That’s a very sexy play…. as Zia would say.
