Crossley led a low spade to dummy’s ace and declarer played king, queen, then jack of diamonds. Crossley won the third diamond and, knowing that he could not afford to play a spade as that would put dummy in, switched to a low heart. Declarer won the heart and played three more rounds of hearts, putting Crossley back on play. Now he switched to ace and nine of clubs and Greene ducked the § 9. Declarer won the § 10, but had then to lead into the § KJ to lose the last two tricks for down one. Nice defense, but note that if declarer had allowed the § 9 to hold the trick, Crossley would have had to give the last two tricks to dummy and the contract would have made.

Trinidadian, Samlal Mannie of the Ramlogan team played in 3NT from the West hand. The defense began with four rounds of spades and Mannie threw the § J9 from dummy and the § 2 from hand. He won the club switch, cashed one top heart in dummy, then all the diamonds. The last diamond squeezed North, who threw his § K to keep the heart guard, so the Vienna Coup had produced the ninth trick. Of course, the club finesse would have succeeded, but had Mannie kept two clubs in the dummy, would he have finessed if North had switched to a club after cashing the fourth spade, or would he have relied on the 3-3 heart break? His way was better, allowing for both 3-3 hearts and the squeeze.

In another part of the forest, Alan Sontag and Peter Weichsel got to 5¨ .

With four balanced hands around the table, it might have been best for Weichsel to pass the responsive double as 3ª doubled goes for a sure 500, as against a far from certain 600 in 5¨ . But Weichsel made his vulnerable game after careful play, justifying his decision in the auction.

The defense kicked off with three rounds of spades, Weichsel ruffing the third round. Now he drew three rounds of diamonds then cashed three rounds of hearts ending in dummy. The point of this play was to ascertain whether it might be necessary to take the double finesse in clubs. Had South been the one to hold four hearts, there would have been no squeeze possibility and North would have been marked with club length. As it was, he next cashed the last diamond and North was squeezed in hearts and clubs, forced to either pitch the winning heart or come down to only a doubleton club. When he chose the latter option, Weichsel threw his losing heart and played a club to the jack then cashed the § A, dropping the king, and led to the § Q for his eleventh trick.