During the last days, I directed at the WBF Transnationals. The tournament is a few boards old when I am called to one of the BBO tables.
East picked up this hand and opened 1♣, raised to 2♣ by his partner and, with no bidding from the opponents, he ends up in 3NT.
A heart is led and declarer has to play 3NT with these hands. Yes, this is what he actually saw. The opponents start with 4 rounds of hearts, fortunately they break 4-4. Declarer tried a club to the K at some point, which won, then switched to another suit, lost a couple more tricks and in trick 12 he finally had a real problem: no more cards with one round to play. Director!
I arrived at the table. In the meantime, east had found the ♣A on the floor. He claimed 9 tricks from the top but that is not what the law says. Law 14 says that all tricks remain as they are and that ♣A is added to the hand whenever it has been found. It is also deemed to have been in the hand all the time, so in theory that could have created a revoke with additional penalties. Well, that didn’t happen, but needless to say that east was not entirely happy when I ruled that the result stood.
East asked me to check with my colleagues. I did and one of my colleagues told me who east was: Mr. Angelini, the sponsor of the Italian team. Later, I heard through the grapevine that east wanted to file an official complaint against the TD and suggested to take the same measures as the Romans did with their enemies some 2,000 years ago.
Meanwhile, there was real bridge to be played. Here are two interesting problems. First you hear a strong 2♣ on your left, 2♦ on your right, 3NT on your left showing 27-28 balanced, 6NT. Partner leads the ♦10 to declarer’s A.
Declarer now plays the ♥K and a ♥ to the Q, partner showing an even number of cards, back to ♦K and 3 more rounds of ♦ follow. Your partner started with 3 diamonds and discards a heart and a spade on the diamonds. Next comes the ♣4. Your play and if you win the ace, what do you play next?
On this hand, you reach 6 ♦, with a 2♥ overcall on your left and a raise to 4♥ on your right. The ♥A is led, followed by the ♣4 (3rd/5th), 5, J, A. Now what?
Solutions to follow later, as BBO is about to restart with the next session of the Netherlands-USA final.