Super star Juniors are springing up everywhere, living, breathing and playing bridge. Nicolai (The Kid) Heiberg-Evenstad (16) from Norway and Christian Lahrmann (21) from Denmark are both already professional bridge players and are crazy talented both in the bidding and the play.
One of the finest card players of the ‘new’ generation is England’s Ben Norton. Watch how he helped himself to a game swing against one of the stronger teams at the recent WBT event in Copenhagen (see diagram).
Ben and his partner, Stefano Tommasini, rapidly bid to their vulnerable game, although they missed out on the best spot of 3NT by North. West led the ♣K, which was allowed to hold with East contributing the ♣5. Not knowing if she should continue Clubs, West tanked for a moment and then selected the ♠8.
Ben decided that West’s pause at trick two was to decide between Spades or Diamonds, and that therefore the ◆A was likely to be offside. It’s not much to go on, but a small clue is better than no clue at all – and believe me, having no clue is something I could write a book on.
Reading the hand perfectly, Ben won the Spade in hand, took two top Hearts and returned to hand with the ♣Ace to draw the last trump. Then he played his singleton Diamond up… Had West taken more time to study the hand, she might have inserted the Queen of Diamonds, but everything happened so smoothly; she was not on high alert and Ben was a step ahead. When she played low, Ben backed his card-reading and inserted the ◆9. That was it; East could win but was forced to give the tenth trick back with his return, whether a Diamond or a Spade.
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