Everyone would agree that Geir Helgemo, from Norway, is one of the world’s best players. He was South, in today’s deal. North-South would have defeated the four spade contract providing they took three heart tricks before giving up the lead. Helgemo’s light response caused his partner to compete to five diamonds. There were two top trump losers and the clubs would have to be played for no losers — seemingly impossible on this lie of the cards.
Helgemo ruffed the opening spade lead, led a heart to dummy’s queen, and ruffed dummy’s last spade. He cashed the ace and king of hearts before crossing to dummy with the ace of clubs. The queen of diamonds was led, hoping to induce a cover by East should he hold king doubleton, but East won with the ace perforce. East was down to all black cards and chose to lead a spade rather than a club into dummy, not that it mattered. Helgemo ruffed in dummy while shedding a club from his hand.
Another trump was led to West’s king, and it was his turn to suffer. West was also forced to yield a ruffsluff and another club was discarded by Helgemo as dummy ruffed. Five diamonds bid and made — magical!
You may have heard the phrase: “Just because a contract is hopeless is no reason to go down in it.” We don’t think Helgemo wrote that phrase, he just lives by it.