English 2023 יולי 239 גיליון 47 The Bulletin of the 4th European Winter Games included a contribution from the wellknown author David Bird who wrote: “Trudging through the BBO archives for material, I stumbled upon this instructive board”. Dealer East, Vul E/W Q K85 T92 AKQ852 AJT92 K86543 2 3 Q53 AK6 T963 J74 7 AQJT9764 J874 - This high-level competitive deal appeared in the final of the Polish U21 trials. At one table the bidding was normal, as well as the result: West North East South 1♠ 4♥ 4♠ 5♥ All Pass As expected, North-South made a phantom sacrifice instead of beating four spades. They were not doubled, though. West naturally led the ♠A, switching to diamonds after he saw the dummy: Five hearts down two. However, at the other table South deemed the four hearts overcall to be too little. He decided to intervene at the five-level, and from there on, everyone went crazy: West North East South 1♠ 5♥ 5♠ 6♥ 6♠ Pass Pass 7♥ Dbl All Pass One would expect an identical defense resulting in plus 800 for East/West, compared to plus 100 at the other table, but West was sure that North had a spade void (Otherwise, why was he bidding so much?), so in his opinion a spade lead was pointless. He had a blind choice between the minor suits, and eventually the club ten hit the table. South disposed of his spade loser at trick 1, set up dummy’s clubs with one ruff and scored all thirteen tricks: eight hearts and five clubs. Instead of minus 800, the score was seven hearts doubled and made for a huge swing of 18 IMPs. David Bird is quite an expert on disastrous leads. I present two earlier examples from his book Famous Bridge Disasters, in which a lower contract failed in one room after normal defense, but a slam was allowed to make at the other room due to a disastrous lead. Disastrous Leads // Ram Soffer
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