By Barry Rigal (slightly edited here). Original source: 8th European Open Bridge Championships Daily Bulletin, June 2017
Devious Doings In The Discards
Marshall Lewis (E) dutifully led his partner’s suit and declarer (N) captured the ten with the ace, and immediately led a club to the nine – a very good start. Back came the spade jack from W (maybe carrying some mild suit preference nuance). What was Lewis to discard? He inferred from declarer’s failure to play on diamonds that N had ♦AQ9 — so the squeeze was looming on him for 11 tricks. Accordingly he discarded heart ♥K, trying to look like a man who was creating an entry for partner. Declarer fell for the ruse — he finessed the club 10, unblocked the ♣Q, crossed to the ♦A and cashed the last club. Then he cashed ♦Q, finessed in diamonds, and ran the diamonds to throw East in with the fifth diamond.
In the two-card ending, Lewis had ♥Q7 left, Wildavsky his master spade and one heart. When Lewis led his low heart declarer settled for ten tricks by rising with ♥A. Had Lewis not made his psychic ‘unblock’ of the heart king, N would surely have made eleven tricks by this line of play: having scored two spades, one heart, three clubs, and three diamonds, declarer could throw Lewis in with a heart honour at Trick Eleven, forcing a lead into dummy’s diamond tenace.
-430 was worth a good score for our heroes, whereas -460 would have been well below average.
