Bridge | 29 August 2020

I have not played a single hand of bridge for about a month, neither have I kibitzed online. Ergo I have no bridge stories to tell and no players to tell them about. However, I have been reading a bit and one of my favourite bridge books is Geir Helgemo’s Bridge With Imagination. In most of the featured hands he finds some magical stardust to sprinkle over the cards, bamboozling the opps with his brilliance. Unusually, today’s hand, from the 2000 Bermuda Bowl round robin, features his teammates, fellow Norwegians Boye Brogeland and Erik Saelensminde (aka Silla) see diagram.

West led a low heart which South (Silla) won with the queen. He continued with ♥K which West had to duck, otherwise Declarer makes five spades, three hearts and ♣A; now he could only count eight. The club finesse was unlikely to work after East’s weak-two opening and he could not afford to give up a club because the defenders would have five tricks to take.