Kerri Sanborn, of Delray Beach, Florida, has been one of America’ s leading players for more than four decades. She was South in today’ s deal.
Sanborn has declared many hands in her long career with only a 4-3 trump fit. Very few, however, have seen her as the player with only three trumps. She accepted North’ s invitation with an air of great confidence. She let the opening heart lead run to her queen and calmly led the king of spades from her hand. East ducked his ace, thinking it a routine move defending against declarer’ s “known” four-card trump holding.
Sanborn led a diamond to dummy’s king, winning the trick, and a diamond back to her jack, losing to W est’ s ace. W est, who thought Sanborn’ s trumps were headed by the ace and king and maybe the jack, put dummy in with the queen of diamonds hoping Sanborn would take a trump finesse. Sanborn cashed the ace of hearts and ruffed a heart. The ace - king of clubs and a club ruff brought Sanborn up to nine tricks. She led a heart from dummy, and when East ruffed with the seven, Sanborn over-ruffed with the jack and had 10 tricks. East might have ruffed with the ace and led a spade to West’s queen, but then the 10 of spades in dummy would be the tenth trick. There might have been a little egg on the defenders’ faces, but it was very well played by Sanborn!
