Barnet Shenkin is an expert from Scotland who lived in Florida for almost 25 years. He has written a book called “Heroes, Icons, and Scandals.” This is not an instructional book, but rather a collection of stories about some of the great players and personalities in the history of bridge. Today’s deal is from that book and features the great Italian player, Georgio Belladonna, as declarer.
Belladonna covered the opening club lead with dummy’s king and ruffed East’s ace. Then he took a long break trying to decide the best play. He cashed the ace of diamonds and led a diamond to dummy’s jack. He cashed the queen of clubs, discarding his 10 of spades, and returned to his hand by ruffing a club with the 10 of diamonds. He cashed one more diamond leaving this position:
He cashed the last diamond and West couldn’t defend the position. Should West shed a heart, the ace, king, and another heart would establish the long heart and put West on play to lead from his king of spades. West discarded a spade, so Belladonna shed a heart from dummy and cashed the ace of spades. The lead of the queen of spades cleared the suit and set up two spade tricks in dummy. Incredible!
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