Ron Tacchi, from France, has been the official photographer for the European Bridge League and the World Bridge Federation for many years. He was South, in today’s deal.
South’s two spade rebid had shown extra values and encouraged his partner to move toward this borderline slam. The opening club lead was won in dummy perforce, and Tacchi led a trump to East’s king and Tacchi’s ace. The king of hearts might have been a falsecard from king doubleton, but Tacchi looked East up and down and decided that he was an honest man — the king was most likely singleton.
Tacchi unblocked the queen of diamonds and cashed the king and queen of clubs, discarding two spades from dummy. The ace of spades was followed by a spade ruff in dummy, and the two top diamonds were cashed while Tacchi shed two spades from his hand. The fall of the jack of diamonds made the 10 good, but Tacchi had nothing left to discard. He did need to reduce his trump length to the same as West’s, so he ruffed a diamond back to his hand. West had followed suit helplessly to every trick.
In the three-card end position, South was down to the queen-ninesix of trumps and West held the jack10-seven. Dummy still had the eight of trumps. Tacchi simply exited with a low heart toward dummy’s eight and West had to surrender. Well done!
