None Vul
IMPs
Dealer: South
Lead: 
5
nikkos K 10 5 4 Q 2 10 9 A 10 7 6 2 |
||
| glorious J 9 8 3 A 7 6 A 6 2 Q 9 4 |
![[W - E]](http://gee.aaronhaspel.com/files/2012/10/t.gif) |
xx A Q 7 J 8 4 K 8 7 5 3 5 3 |
| Maestro 6 2 K 10 9 5 3 Q J 4 K J 8 |
| West
1 |
North
Pass |
East
1NT |
South Pass Pass |
Given a heart lead, can you find a plausible line on which 1NT makes 3? How about a line on which it makes at all?
Glad you asked. Declarer ducks Gee’s heart lead to nikkos’s Q and wins the return with the HA. There is now one heart left that Gee can’t see, the J (which declarer obviously has). I mention this advisedly. Declarer plays a low diamond from dummy, and ducks the 10 from nikkos, which Gerard, apparently in no hurry to run his hearts and with no certain outside entry, lets hold. No harm done, as nikkos finds the club shift, won by Gee with the K. And now the coup de grace: the H3! Declarer gratefully takes the HJ and runs the diamonds. Nikkos discards his club winners and eventually has to lead a spade when in with the CA, giving declarer nine tricks. It isn’t every day you see ten defensive tricks compressed to four. After the hand Nikkos asked Gerard why he didn’t return a club. “You didn’t play a club until trick 4,” said Gee.
And clearly no reason but Nikkos’ late play of a small club (rather than the pedestrian play of returning partner’s opening lead suit when he could have shifted to a club at trick two) can justify a SIX-trick compression, surely a hands-down winner in any Compression Play of the Year contest, and on a par with Kantar’s great coup of going down in 3NT with 31 HCPs between his hand and dummy’s.
We have over 200 people that are not life masters in our local bridge club, 80 that started duplicate 2 years ago in Easybridge. Every one of these people knows to take their tricks when they can. But then again, not one of them has read Gerard’s book yet. Maybe once they read that book they will learn to defend as eloquently as this hand was defended.