BIGOT IS LOST FOR WORDS AS AN 8 AND 9 COMPLETELY STITCH HIM UP....( As did Johnny Supremo )

This hand more than any other illustrates the importance of those intermediate cards, especially in a 7H grand slam contract which involved a squeeze coupled with a trump coup. The critical cards that enabled Johnny to pull off this contract were the 9 of spades and the 8 of diamonds. Dummy turned up with K9xx....x.....K8xx....Kxxx, opposite Johnny's Axx....AKQJ93...Ax.....Ax.

Bigot confidently kicked off with the Q of spades from his holding of QJ10...x....QJ109...Jxxxx ( his partner of course holding a troublesome trump suit in his 3-5-3-2 distribution ). Johnny took the opening lead in hand with the Ace. Next came the Ace/King of trumps, which revealed the bad trump split......and a possible heart loser. With nothing better to do at this stage, declarer played out the two minor suit Aces. Bigot who already under pressure was now down to J10 of spades, QJ10 of diamonds and 3 clubs to the jack.

At trick 6 , Johnny played the queen of hearts.....and Bigot was decidedly uncomfortable. A spade discard was out of the question since dummy's K9 looked good for 2 tricks. Throwing a club would enable declarer to play a club, ruff a club and establish a club winner in dummy. The 10 of diamonds was the lesser of all evils ( and so a club was thrown from dummy ). So at trick 7, it was a diamond that was played to dummy's King, with a diamond ruff back to hand......which of course set up the 8 of diamonds as a winner in dummy.

At trick 9 a club went to the King , with the 8 of diamonds coming next.......for either a spade discard.....or an over-ruff should East elect to play a trump. East did dive in with a low trump taken by Johnny's 9.

By this time the following 3 card ending appeared : Bigot J10 of spades J of clubs, while dummy held K9 of spades, and the 6 of clubs. So when El Supremo played the Jack of hearts felling East's 10, Bigot was well and truly stitched up.

Whatever he threw set up two winners in dummy to see the contract home. Never before have a seen a grown man wail.