Santiago de Chile, quarter final of the World Teams Championship (contesting the Bermuda Bowl) 1993 Netherlands-USA.

We are seated behind South, Dutch star Wubbo de Boer. He and partner Bauke Muller face Peter Weichsel and Bobby Levin (USA). De Boer is declarer in 3NT.

S/-		♠	7
		♥	9 6 2
		♦	J 7 4
		♣	A K J 6 5 4
		♠	A Q J 5
		♥	A 7 3
		♦	A K Q 8
		♣	3 2

West leads the ♥K, East discarding the ♠2.
De Boer hands you his cards. How do you play?

Solution

The match was played on VuGraph (meaning the cards of every deal are projected on a large screen in a kind of cinema; the spectators can follow every card that is being played, while listening to expert commentators).
The commentators predicted (seeing all hands!) down one - from which you can conclude the distribution is unfavourable for declarer...
However, De Boer found a line play that was 100% certain to succeed, however bad the distribution.
He won the lead with the ♥A and played a club. West contributed the ♣10 and De Boer won with the ♣K. He crossed to his hand with a diamond and played another club.
If West had followed suit with a small club, De Boer would have inserted the ♣J and made his contract one way or another:
- Either East makes the ♣Q but he is 'the safe hand' (having no hearts) and declarer now has eleven tricks, since the ♦J is the entry for the remainder of the established club suit.
- Or the ♣J wins, after which declarer has at least nine tricks (twelve if the club suit is 3-2).

But, as stated before, the distribution was very unfavourable, for West showed out in the second round of clubs.
De Boer won with the ♣A and cashed his remaining diamonds. He kept a close eye on how many hearts West discarded. After the diamonds there were six cards left, declarer having won all seven tricks so far.
If West kept four hearts and two spades (probably, but not certain, ♠Kx), De Boer planned to exit with a heart. After making four heart tricks, West then would have to play into the spade tenace. Weichsel saw this coming, so he kept five hearts and therefore one spade. No problem for De Boer. He played the ♠A:

S/-		♠	7
		♥	9 6 2
		♦	J 7 4
		♣	A K J 6 5 4
♠	K 9 6			♠	10 8 4 3 2
♥	K Q J 10 8 5 4			♥	-
♦	9 5			♦	10 6 3 2
♣	10			♣	Q 9 8 7
		♠	A Q J 5
		♥	A 7 3
		♦	A K Q 8
		♣	3 2

West's good play of baring the ♠K was in vain: De Boer saw the ♠K come down and cashed the ♠QJ, so he had made the first ten tricks. He made a second overtrick by getting off lead with the ♠5. East had thrown a spade in trick one, which turned out to cost a trick: he won with the ♠10, his last two cards being the ♣Q9. Dummy was down to ♣J6, so East had to concede a club trick...

But what if the ♠K had been with East? Then too De Boer would have made his contract, after all his line of play was 100% certain to succeed! After cashing the ♠A, this time not dropping the ♠K in West, he would have played the ♠Q. East would be welcome to make the ♠K and the ♣Q (and even two diamonds if that suit had been 6-0; De Boers line of play could also cope with that!) but declarer would have been certain to make his ninth trick by way of either the ♠J or dummy's ♣J.
Truly beautiful dummy play.

This was the auction at the other table:

¹ Strong (16⁺), conventional

Double dummy this contract perhaps can be made, but is clearly inferior to 3NT.
Leufkens led the ♥K and of course Westra did not ruff (that would have shortened his trump holding while ruffing a loser from declarer).
Declarer misguessed in spades when he crossed to the ♦J and took a 'normal' finesse in spades. Leufkens won with the ♠K and cashed two hearts for down one: -50 to NS.
Netherlands won 11 IMP on the deal, the quarter final (208-180 IMPs) and eventually the title. Hardly surprising if you play like that!