Today’s deal is from a major National event not long ago. West was 16-year-old Finn Kolesnik and East was Harrison Luba, 15. South was a well-known American expert.

The East-West bidding would not meet with universal approval, and South certainly didn’t like it, but it led to a wonderful result for East-West. South played low from dummy on the opening trump lead, as would we all. East’s nine forced declarer’s jack.

South tried a diamond to dummy’s 10. East won with his ace and shifted to the 10 of spades. Declarer might have done a little better to duck this, but he was trying to do a lot better, which probably needed a defensive slip from these “kids.” There was no slip.

South won the spade shift with his ace and led the jack of diamonds. West won with his king and led the king of hearts, knocking out South’s ace. A club to the king lost to East’s ace and East reverted to spades. West won and drew all of South’s remaining trumps and then ran the rest of the tricks with his spades. They held declarer to two trump tricks and the ace of spades — down four for 1100 points!

South, gentleman that he is, warmly congratulated the boys for their excellent play.