The recent European Championship in Denmark has given all keen bridge reporters plenty of material, I liked the following hand from the bulletin, featuring Allan Livgard on the winning Norwegian team.
It’s particularly interesting to notice the slow approach in the auction by N/S; jumping around and making nondescript cue-bids in the opponent’s suits does not make for better auctions – it’s usually better to use the space to get your suits across. Allan’s 2♠ on the second round is a good example, partner Terje Aa’s 4♦ is another, and finally the well-judged raise to 6♦ made it three.
East led the Ace of Hearts.
There’s some scope for setting up a Spade trick to discard the Queen of Clubs from dummy, but that seems like a long shot, and surely East is a huge favourite to hold the ♣K anyway.
Allan instead ruffed the lead and played a Club to the Queen. When that worked, he ruffed another Heart, re-entered dummy with a trump and ruffed a third Heart.
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